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).
Seeing another exciting episode, I had to jump in of course Tony. Building up the narrative of a siege is one of the benefits of these games I believe. I have nothing against freak results as long as they are rare. The group I was with long spoke about the British Marines in an AWI game who managed to score 3 ones which meant they fled. I will tune in again in the next few days for the next instalment.
ReplyDeleteHi Jim - there were a rather larger number of predictable, fairly routine outcomes during the testing as well, but they are even less exciting to read about!
DeleteA couple of ideas emerging from these latest sessions which might be interesting to ponder are:
(1) Previously, there was a chance element in digging earthworks, and I've decided that this is too fiddly, and also slows down the game. I'm intending to replace this with a maintained Weather Indicator, and at extremely wet values of the WI digging (and repairing) becomes impossible until the weather improves, and there are also disadvantages for artillery fire in heavy rain - there could even be partial flooding of the trenches...! Otherwise, digging work just proceeds as ordered, without dice.
(2) During siege turns, direct artillery fire at anything in "hard" cover needs 6s to hit, and this includes fortifications and all manner of completed trenches etc. I am coming to the conclusion that guys digging saps should be harder to hit than that - they are, after all, working mostly below ground level, and - worst of all for the gunners - it's at night! I intend to introduce a re-roll (5 or better) for any 6s scored on men digging saps. This for roundshot - I might allow 4 or better as a successful re-roll for shellfire. Thinking about it - it would be possible for the garrison to waste a crazy amount of powder trying to shoot sappers at night with the heavy fortress guns, and they have a limited store!
Well that all seems to be panning out quite nicely…the glacis green is growing on me too.
ReplyDeleteThank you JBM - I have to tell you that I have repainted the glacis with a rather less fluorescent shade of green. I have replaced Dulux's "Venus Flytrap" with "Indian Ivy No.3"; perhaps Subliminal Improvement is the new Creeping Elegance?
DeleteThe espionage sub-game is potentially a riot, but it is going to require a lot of careful definition of what you can and can't do, which might cut its nuts off. One of the possible missions, for example (under the "Sabotage" heading), is to assassinate the enemy commander, but that has a very high difficulty setting - puddings need not apply. It's tricky that you don't find out your spy's ability until you send him on his first job, so sending him to do something dead boring is a sensible audition. It's safer to fire him and hire a replacement if he's a dud.
Subliminal Improvement….Lol.
DeleteMaybe "Subliminal Enhancement"? My marketing people prefer it.
DeleteGood to see the onward progress of both the rules development and the siege.
ReplyDeleteThe espionage piece is something that I hadn't expected.
It's coming along quite nicely. One immediate issue I have is that I am trying to assemble one set of general siege rules applicable to periods from 1630 to 1815 with only the slimmest of supplements for each period. I am very much aware that in the WSS storms were very rare; the protocol of the time was that, if the besieger seemed to know what he was doing and the defender did not behave in too unseemly a manner, then after a certain decent time terms would be agreed, and the garrison would march out with banners and weapons and (possibly) the ceremonial silver plate from the Town Hall.
DeleteThus for my immediate purposes a full assault is not such a high priority, but this level of gentility is not appropriate for Magdeburg or Saragossa, so the finished toolkit must include working systems for storms and sallies and all that. In passing, it is worth noting that my experience of toy sieges (which has gone on for many years, though the number of actual sieges is not high) has regularly reminded me that the context and the back-story are essential ingredients; the participants must have some sensible reason for putting themselves through this, and some sensible perception of how far it should go, when to stop, or the game is too vague and meaningless.
It only requires some bastard like Buonaparte to threaten court martial and potential execution to any garrison commander who surrenders without surviving at least one storm, and everything changes. Or the possibility of a relieving army coming along one day. I believe that Louis XIV issued a similar instruction to his commanders, but it was ignored. Well, of course it was.
I think in the WSS it was not unknown for sieges to be abandoned, but it was usually because they had become politically or strategically irrelevant rather than that they just gave up.
I shall, of course, push on with bombardment, and look closely at the changeover points between the siege rules and the tactical rules (which are "Corporal John" in this case), since these also have to be practicable and make sense [if you decide to make a sally, how do you change your mind, or when have you succeeded...?].
The introduction of espionage into the game has roots in Tony Bath and CS Grant and all over the place - most recently in Piquet's "Vauban's Wars". This implementation, of course, is mine own, and is intended to work without an umpire. The spies are in the enemy army, and communicate by carrier pigeons and all that clever stuff. It all adds colour!
Excellent stuff. Personally I prefer to have individual figures for oddities like spies, military police, commisars etc. You don't need many of them and they are fun to model.
ReplyDeleteI like it! I can see the appeal - thus far I'm waiting to see if the thing flies before I recruit the character actors, but I must have a look around. For the WSS, the scale I use means there is a shortage of suitable figures, but I'll have a good look at Irregular's various ranges!
DeleteThis is all fascinating stuff Tony and I can see now how vital the smoke puffs are. I do think you need to have a spy figure though!
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I'm thinking about it seriously! Of course, the theory is that the spy is one of the guys in that regiment over there, but the cartoon version would insist on someone in sunglasses. For the Napoleonic version, a cantinière would make a good spy. I think I need a choice of a few for each side, and I'll do a chief of police for the town - I think regular officers are OK for the Provost.
DeleteThe rules seem to be coming on nicely; there's plenty of decisions to be made and costs associated with each to stop players throwing the kitchen sink at everything.
ReplyDeleteHi Rob - I think I've got at least a "concept" (DJT) in place for everything I want to include - though I still have a long way to go with mining; mining really only works with an umpire! I've integrated the "unit purchase" bit in with the "army morale" score which is what runs down to decide the result - the more kit the armies buy, the fewer morale points they get to start with! I've also convinced myself that for any period more formal than the ECW the game should start with the 2nd Parallel complete, but no gun emplacements built on it yet - that keeps the strategy completely open, though it will need a bit of science to work out pre-start hits and supply losses.
DeleteI assume the problem with mining is how to keep it hidden from either side? Perhaps there's a way to do that's not hidden? If you limit the number of mining options to say ten for your current fortress layout - one for each wall and two for each bastion side face. These points can be numbered 1-10. Attackers can start a number of tunnels towards their targets but under the tunnel entrance place a number indicating the target (or 'dummy'). Defenders can then expend points defending (counter-mining or simply detecting) one or more target positions. Obviously the attacker's mines can be placed advancing towards any target and not necessarily the one they're actually heading to. If the defender waits to detect mines before counter-mining then it may be too late but starting early risks being in the wrong place. I think this is enough to outline what I'm thinking of. It was inspired by the hidden movement system in my 'Breaking of the Fellowship Game' on my new blog - everything can be seen but you don't know where it is.
DeleteMy blog is cabinettewars.blogspot.com and you'll need to scroll down to the 'Lost on the Woods...' post.
Rob - this is very interesting - I shall study this carefully - many thanks.
DeleteAt last I've recovered my blog list and am starting to catch up.
ReplyDeleteThis is a magnificent project and I'm looking forward to watching it develop.
I've only once been involved in an 18thC siege (not a real one) but it was a team effort in 2011 and we were using a mix of the siege rules included in Duffy's 'Fire and Stone' and 'Charge!' with 40mm homecast figures, played over a weekend at Histoicon in with a series of 4 hour sessions with whoever signed up. It started with trying to stop a last minute supply convoy, the various trenching forward and sortie games and finally storing. Not serious but fun.
Siege of Adleheim (Yikes my html is RUSTY!)
It was good fun to run but not exactly serious.
Thanks Ross - since this is a solo effort during the testing, I've been running a scruffy ship - not a trace of regimentals, and my oldest carpet slippers - and have made the most out of any chuckles that emerged. I followed your link, and found the 2011 posts - excellent! - right in the "Sandhurst" spirit of the Chris Duffy game (and, presumably, the "Charge" tactical game which that involved).
DeleteHaving been through much navel gazing and reiteration, my current siege ruleset has a lot of Duffy in there! To everything there is a season - I had a period of serious Piquet, and I learned a lot, but I was not at ease in it.