The Red Tiddlywink of Courage

I've had an interesting exchange of emails with Hedley, who lives in New Zealand, about my use of casualty markers, or loss markers, or whatever you may choose to call them (I am a bit inconsistent myself).

It is evident from photos of my wargames that the look of the thing is rather compromised by the presence of bright red tiddlywinks, which Hedley thought was not necessarily an enhancement. I have written here about this topic before, but Hedley thinks it's interesting, so maybe there is some mileage in setting out my thoughts (my current thoughts, that is - they will doubtless evolve further) on ways of keeping track of the state of our wargame units.

This is one of those areas where it becomes evident that everyone likes what he likes - that we play our games in ways that suit us, and that one man's no-brainer of a solution is another man's pet hate. If I say something here that you disagree with, by the way, that's not a problem - please do not feel the need to write and tell me what a cretin I am. Recently I have been on the receiving end of some silly invective concerning my fondness for the Accursed Hexagon; it seems only fair if I respond by saying that I also have developed a very strong dislike of a few things - order sheets and roster cards are high on the list. They do not work for me - they create mess and they distract attention away from the action on the tabletop. They are simply methods of recording more information, and I understand why they are used, but I find them a mighty turn-off. If I read a set of rules and become aware of an expectation that I am going to write down orders for each unit, each turn, then I shall put the rule book back where I found it. Similarly, I find that unit cards (such as in the Perfect Captain rules, which otherwise seem very satisfactory) are a fussy sort of add-on, to solve game problems that could be handled in other ways.

Let us not get into any boardgames vs miniatures debate - these discussions invariably become religious - but it would be silly to disregard one of the obvious differences. The miniatures player has an advantage in that a lot of the information needed is apparent from the models themselves - we can recognise the type of unit from the uniform and weaponry, and it is convenient to use the size of the unit - the number of figures remaining, if you approach the matter in that way - as an indication of effectiveness. This is a very flexible variant of those numbers in the corners of your boardgame counters; with some thought, the unit on the tabletop can record enough information to allow the game to be fought without off-line devices - yes, that's right - we've all been doing this for years.

Many years ago, I started basing my units up as per the Wesencraft model - normally figures were based in multiples of three, with one of the threes split onto a two and a one, to allow "change" of odd casualties. As time passed, I moved toward larger groups - these days my infantry battalions mostly comprise 4 bases of 6 figures (in two rows). I found it much more convenient to abandon the "small change" idea - I either calculate casualties to the nearer whole base or else use a miniature die to record the odd losses. It's a trade-off. Certainly, I have used 6-man bases for a good few years now, and have never considered changing back, so I guess that - for me - it works.

Having reduced the labour required to remove casualties, the next step was to abandon the removal of casualties altogether, and - once again - I have no immediate intention to change back again. I now use markers to denote losses - I could use rather more subtle markers, but my current cheap-and-cheerful red tiddlywinks do the job, and are visible from across the table. These, I think, are the arguments that brought me to stop removing casualties:

(1) Handling - many of my figures are old and fragile (Les Higgins and Garrison - this mostly means you); on the other hand, some are new and even more fragile (Falcata, Art Miniaturen, NapoleoN, Hagen - this means you). As my eyesight becomes less precise, as my fingers gradually turn into horses' hooves and as my anxious nature seeks new and more obscure things to worry about, I find that the fear of damaging my soldiers has become a serious issue. They are now handled almost exclusively by their bases, and for the less tactically-detailed rulesets they are attached by magnets to rigid sabots. This may seem neurotic, but it is important to me. The less handling the better.

(2) Efficiency (and mess) - Casualties during a miniatures battle, whether removed singly or in large clumps, will gradually take over all the horizontal surfaces in the room (two separate rooms, in my case). Sorting the figures back into organised units before storing them away is a massive contributor to put-away time, and provides extra exposure to the Handling hazard (see (1) above), particularly if the hour is late and the wine is finished.

(3) Proportionality, and the Nature of Casualties [what?] - my take on this is that if a unit is worth (say) 4 to start with (bases, Combat Points, potatoes...) and loses 1 then it does not follow that 25% of the men present just got shot. What it does mean is that the unit is now only about 75% as effective as it was initially - whether the difference is explained by actual physical casualties, or fatigue, or plain old loss of interest is almost immaterial from the general's viewpoint. This came home to me most forcibly when I started working with rules for the English Civil War, which was my first exposure to non-homogeneous regiments. In a unit which consists of 3 bases - say 2 of muskets and 1 of pikes - if you lose a base, which one is it? Further to the point, if the unit has become 2/3 of what it was, what is it now? Well, I reckoned the easiest way to do this was to leave all the original bases in play (so you can see what it was, what mix of subunits it had, how big it was) and just place the red markers to show losses. That gives you a more complete picture. It's also very difficult to represent different formations when you only have 1 base left!

That's about it. That's what prompted me to move in this direction, and thus far - apart from the appearance thing - I have no reason at all to believe I made a mistake. I have a background project somewhere to develop an assorted stock of flat (MDF?) painted casualty markers - which might be interesting, but it would take some work to get this operational, they would probably not be as visible as the red plastic, and there is a slightly undignified whiff of the floating chalk outline scene from Naked Gun.

For the time being, the tiddlywinks have it.

Big Shiny Wargames Rules Books - and the occasional nugget

Every now and then I thin out my collection of wargames rules, and each time the process is roughly the same.

(1) I cannot find something that I know is in the bookcase somewhere - perhaps it's in the overflow area - well, maybe it's in the overflow area for the overflow area...

(2) What on earth is this? - I didn't know I had this rule set - when did I buy/download this? Let's have a cup of coffee and a browse for a minute.

(3) Hmmm - nicely put together, but I'm never going to use these. Put them in the OUT pile...

(4) Now - where was I?

In this way, I have had most of the Napoleonic rules you can think of at some time or other. The life-cycle is obscure - usually I can't remember buying them - they sneak in under the radar from somewhere, often via eBay, I guess - I have a preliminary read when they arrive, get bored or alienated part-way through and then forget all about them. I am constantly reminded, as I have discussed here before, how fashions change. There was a time when rules came in stapled booklets, sometimes with a few card pull-outs for templates and key tables, and the cover illustration would be done by someone who knew the uniforms but couldn't draw for toffee - the sort of artwork now found only on Odemars boxes.

However, at present there are a lot of big, very impressive hardback rules volumes on sale - I just did a quick scan of Amazon, and found all sorts - often retailing at around the £30 mark, usually around 200 pages, and copiously illustrated. The cost puts me off most of them anyway, but also many seem to be picture books about the whole subject of wargaming. They are attractive, and I quite enjoy looking at this sort of thing (though I probably wouldn't choose to own many), but often they appear to be written for newcomers to the hobby. Field of Glory looks nice (though anything published by someone called Slitherine somehow puts me on my guard - someone may think it's trendy and now, but it puts me in mind of a period many years ago when I used to have to try to take seriously commercial software companies with names like Shadowfax). I haven't read the Black Powder book (books?), but it looks (they look?) terrific. And then there's the Neil Thomas books, which seem to get a mixed press - all potentially of interest. Anything which promotes the hobby and attracts new people to it is to be welcomed, I suppose, but we have to be sure to remember why we are buying what we are buying.

So it came as a surprise to find I have no less than 3 big shiny books which I haven't read yet. Since they all finish up in the same end of the Tall Books shelf, their threeness was made even more obvious. In the kind of phoney war period just before Christmas, when the visitors haven't come yet but I have put away my paints in readiness, I got the Big Three down and had a look.

I have the Wargames Foundry Napoleon book by Matthew Fletcher - I have it because it was on a half-price offer and they were offering free shipping on paints if you bought a book. Ker-ching. The book is fun - it is exactly the sort of promotional view of Foundry's gnomish figures you would expect. The rules are wordy and quite Grand Manner-ish - laborious handling of skirmishers, for example - but they appear to boil down to a 2-page QRS - which you would have to photocopy if you wanted to make use of it. The rest is a hotch-potch of history, painting guides, pictures and more pictures - only some of which are relevant to the text. I enjoyed looking at the book, but will never refer to it again, will never attempt to read it right through, and am left thinking that it falls between two stools - it is too padded to be a useful presentation of a rule set, but the tables and so on make it far too fiddly a read for someone looking for a general introduction. Nice though...

Next to it is Lasalle, from Sam Mustafa's Honour series. Now I'm not going to say anything critical about Lasalle - it has a lot of enthusiastic followers, and looks like a good game, though I'm not crazy about the Command rules. I also have a faint concern that Mustafa - not noted for accepting the views of others - might arrange for a horse's head to be placed in my bed if I make any dissenting noises. I am actually a fan - I have played Grande Armée, and I liked Fast Play Grande Armée (which really only existed in unpublished, beta-test form), though eventually I was disillusioned when the Command rules did not provide the degree of Fast Play I was looking for. My main gripe against Prof Mustafa is that he seems to have given up on Bluecher - the grand tactical bit of the Honour series which was the one I was really waiting for - but his credentials are well established - his games are played by many experienced people, and I am sure they work well. I am disappointed that my (second hand) copy of Lasalle shows signs of splitting down the spine - this is not a cheap production - but it is all there, including a heavy duty pull-out QRS. Looks good, actually - I have decided I will have a serious go at Lasalle sometime soon.

The most surprising one of the three is the rule book for Napoleon at War, which is the new figures-&-rules-&-concept-&-packaging move from the man who brought us NapoleoN Miniatures. The figures are 18mm - I have only seen pictures - and I have no intention of buying any, but I bought the book for old time's sake. It is clearly related to the old NapoleoN rules - the hexes are gone, but the interesting rule whereby moving and manoeuvring is slower and more difficult when close to the enemy is still there, overall the game looks sensible and well thought out and the translation into English is a lot smoother. For me, it does have the advantage of being aimed at the sort of big battle I enjoy most. There is a little bit of the rules which I took a great liking to - it is maybe not that significant - it may not even be original (some of the NapoleoN systems were said to be borrowed from Flames of War, for example, which is a noble tradition), but I liked the simplicity.

It is in the very basic area of casualty calculation. Personally I cannot be bothered keeping written rosters, I don't care for casualty markers or miniature dice (though I have used them), and I don't want singly-based figures (too much hassle and too many broken bayonets) - I like my units to be either still in action or not - or at least to be disabled in big enough lumps to make the handling and the arithmetic easy and the level of attrition to be immediately visible. I like my casualties to come off in complete subunits or not at all. The NaW rules have infantry battalions which typically comprise 6 square bases each of 4 figures; the approach is buckets-of-dice - each base in the front row gets 2D6 when they fire (only 1D6 if they are moving, or being charged for less than a full move), and a 4 or better on each dice gets you a hit - there are further adjustments for cover and troop class and all that, but basically Peter Young would recognise this as a good standard approach. And then there is a Saving Throw - before you groan out loud, it is a Saving Throw such as I have not seen before, though you may have.

Each complete 4 hits removes a base, and any odd hits left over are the subject of a 1-dice Saving Throw (carried out by the owner of the target unit). If the dice comes up greater than the number of odd hits, then you forget them - if not, you lose another base. I like it - it is crude enough for me to be able to remember it, it gets the commander of the target unit involved in the firing process, and makes the "luck" element of the game lumpy enough to be entertaining. I do not use 4-man bases, but I do use 6-man bases, and it occurs to me that the same mechanism would work just as well for them. No doubt I'll forget I read this too, but - if only briefly - I did like it.

The Grand Tactical Game - The Butcher's Bill

Bits and pieces, today.

First off, sadly, un petit dommage - after the photo session for the Combat examples, I managed to drop General Maucune, and had to superglue his horse's ankles. Seems OK - better than I feared it might - but it does occur to me that a Hinton Hunt horse would have withstood the fall without problem. The NapoleoN horses are a bit on the elegant side, though less fragile than the current Minifigs horses, especially the rearing ones, on which the old fetlocks cannot support the weight of the figure if you remove the reinforcing struts.

After going over the Combat examples, I am now thinking that a Unit attacking a village or other built-up area should be limited to a Pinning Attack (2D6) - there must be a limit to how many men they can actually bring to bear against a wall?

Finally, since I am not going to include a rule for Weather, here is the last of my proposed Optional Rules for the MEP draft. This gives a method of determining the actual casualties in a battle (or a day of a battle), which is really of more relevance in the context of a campaign. I hope to have a new draft of the Rules downloadable in a few days. At that stage, it should be the first attempt at a full set - I may even write a Contents page and all that!


As ever, all comments most welcome. Apologies for the amount of dice-rolling required for the casualty calculations - another advantage of using a computer.