Sieges: Testing - Episode #3

 

 

The 3rd Parallel at work

Righto - got into the bombardment, the Allies started knocking a hole in the curtain wall. I think that in the real WSS the French garrison would have surrendered by now, but in the interests of testing most of the rules I have pushed it on.

Some interesting bits and pieces along the way; since the changes in the artillery rules, the only decent strategy the defenders had against sapping was to use lots of Trench Raids, which is entertaining, and they did pretty well - they were a major nuisance, they killed some sappers, and supporting infantry, and they eliminated one of the Allied guns [they didn't take the thing away, they spiked it].

The Allies found out that their spy (code name Heinrich) was of good quality, so they directed him to have a go at damaging the town's flour store, and he did it so successfully that the garrison commander lost 8 turns of food, and the situation started looking critical. The French Governor took some of the steps available to him to make the rations go further:

(a) he reduced the standard rations, which added 10% to the number of turns in store

(b) he requisitioned extra food from the civilians, which added a further 10%, but also reduced the Local Support rating by 1 [LS is a measure of the citizens' loyalty to the garrison]

(c) he ordered the slaughtering of all the horses in the town (except his own, naturally), which added 3 turns to the food store, but reduced LS by another 1.

There were things he could do beyond these measures, but the LS was now down to -1, which is getting close to open rebellion in the town; it only required another bad Event Card, or a heavy bombardment of mortar shells, and the citizens might just open the gates to the enemy. He already had a situation where one quarter of his available infantry was required to police the townsfolk. So he was running out of food, the enemy were battering his walls, he was in danger of being overthrown by the citizens and the morale score was not great, but we'll get to that.

 

Getting towards the end game - the surviving Allied 24pdrs were moved up on to the glacis, and started knocking a breach in the wall. The pile of stone damage chips indicates that the tally is currently 33 (I think), and it takes 40 hits to bring a wall like that down - the brave French sappers in Team F, watching from above the breach, are unable to do anything beyond maybe building some barricades behind it.

 

You will observe that there are a few fires brewing in the town, that the two remaining French guns are damaged, and unable to use the Continuous Fire option (they are marginal on powder by this stage anyway), and the Allied 24pdr on this end of the big battery is out of action, since it started Continuous Fire, and promptly blew it's vent (which is very unpleasant, as you may know). This is one of the downsides of this option. You will also observe that the Local Support level is at -1, on a scale of +3 to -3

 

While all this is going on, the Allies still have plenty of powder to keep the field artillery and the mortars bombarding from the 2nd Parallel. The Allies also have a further 4 battalions behind the lines, off the table, to help out in the event of a storm

 

A couple of aerial views of the heart of the siege, at the time when it became obvious that the French had little choice but to ask for terms (in fact they should probably have asked before this)

 

The French are down to 9 morale points - a viable breach would drop this by a further 3, to say nothing of any further hits, and another deduction if the Local Support drops further

 

Part of the boneyard  - the French have lost 2 of their big fortress guns and a mortar, the Allies had a 24pdr cannon eliminated in a Trench Raid, and there are 2 groups of Allied sappers out of action

 

 

 

Sieges: Testing - Episode #2

 Some highlights and a few laughs along the way...

I have been tinkering with the artillery rules, and trying various versions and tweaks as I go along. My little test siege has been through a few re-takes, so overall progress in the narrative sense is limited, but a few things came up which were informative, sometimes amusingly so. There is nothing at all funny about warfare, of course, but these are merely toys, so I am able to gloss over the underlying tragedy in things which go wrong.

There was a lot of fiddling about, so I'll just show a few pictures and talk about them.

 

The artillery on both sides now get properly busy. The rules have been refined quite a bit, which is what this was all about. I think I'll take Rob's advice, and tone down those cotton balls a bit. They are not just cosmetic, by the way - the serious business of measuring powder consumption relies on counting them - two different sizes, you will note, and that's not just big bangs and small bangs - the mortars use a lot of powder for filling shells

 

The smoke puffs also track the number of fires in the town, caused by mortar fire - here you can see 5 crackling away among the buildings, which is bad news for everyone involved. During the housekeeping phase of the garrison's turn, they have to attempt to extinguish individual fires, which might spread otherwise - fire-fighting is more successful if there are sappers deployed in the town for this purpose (you can see a two-man company detailed for this duty, on the walkway near the edge of the table, with the Governor). If the number of fires still burning after the housekeeping work is 5 or more, the Local Support rating (which is basically the level of co-operation the garrison may expect from the townsfolk) will reduce by 1

 

While the Local Support rating is greater than zero, the town mayor (above, in orange coat), may stand in for the Governor on various duties, which can include making a speech to the townsfolk when necessary to raise morale. If the speech-maker rolls 5 or 6 on a D6, the Local Support will rise by 1 point. If, on the other hand, he rolls a 1 (as shown on this occasion), the citizens are less than impressed, and Local Support drops by 1 point. It did not go well. Oops - the mayor is excused further speech-making duties. This started a run of bad breaks for the French, in quick succession, which illustrates nothing beyond what a series of poor dice rolls will get you...

 

While the Allied guns attempt to soften up the French guns on the walls, two companies of sappers start the saps toward the intended 3rd (and final) Parallel, which will be on the glacis. For reasons I can't remember (yes I can - I borrowed the idea from Vauban's Wars) the defenders are not allowed to carry out Trench Raids on the actual glacis - I must think about this. However, we may now expect the French to open up with everything, including the continuous fire option (which uses extra powder and risks wrecking the guns) - that will proceed tomorrow

 

A poignant moment: the Governor, Colonel Bâtard, visits the walls (that's him in the blue coat and the red boots), since his presence helps with the job of rallying away losses among the gunners. Immediately after this picture was taken, the Allies scored a hit on the mortar crew standing next to him; the unfortunate colonel took his survival test, rolled a double-1 and disappeared from history. Perhaps he should have sent the mayor instead...

One additional misfortune for the French around this time was an attempt to use their spy, (code name Aristide). His first mission was to spread discontent among the besieging army's troops, to encourage the soldiers to desert - a form of loss which cannot be rallied away, by the way. Before he set out, a D6 roll revealed that Aristide's ability rating as a spy was 1, officially described as "pudding". Although the mission is rated as fairly easy, the situation was worsened by the fact that the Allies had paid extra to recruit a Provost, and by some freakily unfavourable dice-rolling. Aristide's failure was so extreme that he was apprehended and executed, but before he breathed his last he was persuaded to tell the Allied command full details of the remaining French powder and food stores. To add insult to injury, the French will have to pay from their remaining morale score to recruit a replacement. It was a freak result, but testing seems to be a bit like that. There is no photo of Aristide, of course, since he was a spy and - like miners - spies do not have figures on the table. Maybe it would be more entertaining if they did?

I shall bash ahead on Monday and Tuesday - see how far I get with attempting to breach the walls, and maybe get to some tactical fighting in a storm or a sortie (or both, of course).

Sieges: Testing in progress

 I was pleased to have somewhere to hide from the news onslaught this week. I carried out a few spot checks on the details of some procedures - some got changed, some were fine, at least one was axed completely!

The photos are a mixed bag from various tests - they get more serious towards the end, since I am now working on taking bombardment through its course. This will continue over the weekend, if my sanity holds out. All the changes thus far have been in the direction of simplification.

Simplification; simplification.

One useful sub-project is that I have rehoused my trenches and earthworks in (smaller) Really Useful boxes, which makes it possible to keep the battlefield tidier, and also to find individual items of scenery in real time. 

 

Boxes and boxes - I bet you Vauban was one of those schoolkids who put brown paper backings on his books

 

 

And labelled them

 

Testing encourages me to make up a proper chart for the turn sequence, so that's progress for a start

 

This is the Local Support marker, to keep track of how happy the townspeople are - on a scale of -3 to +3, this seems a bit high to me

 

This started out as the Digging Standard marker, but may have evolved into a Weather Dice - we'll see

 

Early session, with the Allies' Sapper Team A sapping forward, with a guard (a company of Franconian Grenadiers) on hand to protect them from Trench Raids

 

Here Team D is under attack (at night...) by two companies of French infantry. Team D have infantry support, and the French boys have brought their own sappers with them, so that they can wreck the sap if they chase the Allied lads away. This scrap yielded 1 hit for each side, so the Trench Raid party sulked off home and both sides applied the sticking plasters

 

Another early effort, where I made a late-evening howler with the artillery rules, and some of the Allied infantry had to be rescued by VAR

 

We're now moving on to my latest session, where the Second Parallel has been completed, gun emplacements have been constructed, while the defenders attempted to blow them all away, and I have just reached the point where the Allied guns are about to open fire. Note the nifty redoubt on the end of the trench

 

Since the Allies have (predictably) placed their batteries where they can enfilade the terreplein, the French sappers have been busy placing these inelegant green lumps on the terreplein, to reduce the effect of ricochet fire. Are these things called traverses? - can't remember. To be honest, I can't remember whether I meant ricochet fire, either. The French have more soldiers than this, but lack of space means that they are in a safe part of the town, which is A4 sized and lined with ferro sheet...

 

Allied 24pdr batteries - at the Second Parallel stage they can't see enough of the wall to start trying to breach it, so the main effort for the moment will be to wreck all the defenders' guns before the big push. There's a mortar here as well; for simplicity, I'm working with a draft rule whereby mortars can be set up in a trench, sparing the need for a full emplacement. We'll see how it goes. The mortars are mostly intended to lob shells into the town, starting fires and upsetting the civilians

 

The Allied commander, with a couple of his engineers. Although officers can't be fired on, it is generally regarded as poor judgement to ride a horse. As I recall, taking a look at butterflies outside the trench is not recommended either

 

For these test sessions, the besieging infantry are mostly Hessians. The town is in Wallonia, the garrison is French and Bavarian with a French Governor. A sort of World War, really

 

The Allies have set up their heavy batteries in the centre and on the left, positioned so as to enfilade the walls, they have field artillery on the right and mortars on both flanks. They haven't started firing yet - that will be tomorrow, when the smoke puffs will be in evidence

Sieges: A period of solo testing coming up

 I have drafted a number of further changes to my WSS siege rules [Leaguer] - these include the first working versions of a few features, so I happily accept that the game is too unstable (rough?) in its present state to involve any other poor soul in testing, and I propose to fiddle about on my own for a week or so before canvassing for volunteers.

Amongst many other changes, I have fixed the rule for starting and controlling fires in a town, I now have a prototype system for supply of ammunition and food, and the first (very flaky) version of the espionage rules is scribbled out on working sheets. One of the objectives of this next week is to try to put together a QRS which actually helps. As you may imagine, nothing can possibly go wrong.

 

Here is my test fortress. It seems to be sort of French, and thus far has acquired a couple of battalions of infantry, the regulation issue of one-fortress-gun-per-bastion and a couple of mortars. Not a bad start, but a fair way to go, and some choices for the Governor to make (you can see him standing on a walkway near the edge of the table). One early complaint from him is that the new putting-green paint for the glacis is going to have to be calmed right down, since it is horrible, not to say ridiculous. Easily fixed. It is my job to keep the Governor happy - he hasn't commented on the ice-lolly sticks marking the covered way, so I'll take that as approval

 

A general view of the table. The besiegers are not here yet, though evidence of their presence includes the First Parallel around the edge. You may think this looks more like a road than a fortification, but it's OK. There will be a lot of fortification and digging and stuff as we get into this; in any case, this First Parallel is outside artillery range from the walls [the hexes are 200 paces across] and the defenders are not allowed to carry out Trench Raids that far from home. At the far end of the table you will see an outwork called Fort Louis, which the defenders apparently abandoned at the first opportunity. This outwork will probably play no part in the siege, apart from adding a little distraction in the scenery department, though the besieging force (who will be sort of Grand Alliance chaps) might use it as a safe place

Righto - that gets me started. Tomorrow I have to refine the rules for purchasing a force for each side, do some auditing of the stores of food and powder (that's gunpowder, but is probably wig powder too), and get on with some digging and all that manly stuff.

Porridge and Lucozade will be issued first thing in the morning. A soldier's life for me.