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
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