Sieges: More Preparation Work

 This is good fun, and a rather different way to spend an evening, but there is still a lot to do to prepare for my solo "practice" siege using Vauban's Wars (VW). After a couple of (short) evenings, I've worked my way through the official start-up checklist from the manual, decided on the forces involved (points-based purchase system), and set up the battlefield (approximately). I still have a lot of stuff to work on - jobs like photocopying and laminating the game turn markers, and making up damage indicators from gravel and PVA glue. Once I have these things in stock, the overheads of putting on a game should be much reduced. I've also laid out my stock of trenches and gun emplacements (mostly from Fat Frank) on a series of canteen trays - it's a bit like a weird tray-bake.

To be going on with, for this evening, here are some photos of the field, and the checklist, including the OOB.

The besieging troops are laid out along the First Parallel. Yes, it does look like a road, but it is a proper trench - since it is out of range of the fortress, and cannot be the objective of a Sortie or a Trench Raid, and since it is assumed to be complete, to get the game off to a flying start, the convention is that it just looks like a road, but if you screw your eyes up a bit it will look fine. There will be plenty of digging coming up, that's for sure. I'm working on a positioning convention for infantry on the walls or covered way - I may need to revisit this, but at present the rule will be that bases touching the parapet are on the firing step, and thus are exposed and may fire. If they are down below then they are in cover and may not fire. OK - I'm on it.

If it's possible, I'd like to add a small table extension behind the fortress section, to include part of the town, including a Rallying Point. I'd also like to add a little Artillery Park for the besiegers, outside the lines (if only to add a little scenic value to what is a very bleak terrain!).

 I've used my old Terrain Warehouse fortress with the supplied glacis pieces, which is pleasing, but does place restrictions on the design of the fort. I may (reluctantly?) opt to use trench pieces to lay out the glacis - most VW users seem to do this, and what it loses in visual brownie points it probably makes up for in flexibility.

I'll knock together another post when I've made sufficient further progress to justify it.

More soon - I think I've got an evening or two of this prep work before any shooting starts!

*************

Trial VW siege - British attacking French in the Peninsula.

 

3-bastion fortress - no mining (ground too wet or something)

 

Initial set-up, as per VW manual   * = "hidden"

 

Checklist Item	Attribute	Besiegers (British)	Garrison (French)
1	Season	Spring
2	Powder Supply (D6 + 6)	8*	11*
3	Supply Dice	D6	D4
4	Food Supply	-	17* (Average)
5	"Popular Support" [low is good]	-	D8* (fairly hostile)
6	Security	D8	D8
7	Strength of Fortress	Assumed "Poorly Maintained"	Walls 6*. Ravelins 5*, Bastions & Gates 7*. Earth Walls 2
8	Location o f Magazine & Sally Port	To be determined when layout is done	Keep hidden
9	Mining/Countermining	No (too wet)
10/11	Forces	[36 points] Genl & CinC               Free 3 Siege guns              Free 1 Spy                           Free 4 Sappers                    8pts 3 extra Siege Guns    12 2 Heavy Mortars        2 2 Lt Shrapnel Mtrs     1 2 Medium Guns           4 6 Infantry                      6 1 Grenadier                  2 1 extra Spy?                  1 Total exp                     36pts	[18 points] Genl & CinC         Free 3 Fortress guns  Free 1 Spy                      Free 2 Sappers             4pts 2 Heavy guns       6 1 Light Gun           1 4 Infantry              4 1 Grenadier           2 1 extra Spy?           1 Total exp            18pts
12	Leadership Dice (LD)	D10 [Average]	D12 [Average]
13	Siege Morale Pts (SMP) (decided not to use "Army Specials" for this game, to keep things simple)	23 units => 26SMP	13 units => 14SMP

 

Wargame on Thursday - Sorauren

 On Thursday, Stryker and I will play a Zoom-based Napoleonic game. This one is a scenario snappily entitled "Sorauren (French Left)", which neither of us has played before, and is taken straight from the commandsandcolors.net scenarios. It looks like a slugfest, and I noticed after it had been chosen that there is no cavalry on either side, so Stryker and I are going to be wondering how to spend the first 15 minutes of the game, if there are no cavalry units to throw away.

I spent this evening setting up the field, while listening to a football match which I shall not mention again. There is something quite liberating about using someone else's scenario; whatever happens, it will not be my fault. I think these things probably do matter. It is different from my usual scenarios, since the field is quite bare and there are far fewer units than I'm used to. I may learn something here.

 

Initial view from behind the Allied left flank

 

And from the Allied right

 

From behind the French left. There are bonus Victory Points for possession of the ridge just above the centre of the picture (with Spaniards on it). The French had better get cracking...

On the scenery front, I am delighted to announce that I've finally found Wellington's Tree (yes, it was in the wrong box), so it will be appearing, as is required by the terms and conditions of my franchise, and I was also delighted to find the missing top for one of my Iron Age Merit fir trees, this time in a box which has nothing to do with scenery at all. I have superglued the tree-top into place. 

Ha.

 More on Thursday - rural broadband permitting, we have a 10:00 start.

Featherstonia: Wargames Terrain [part 2]

 As promised, here is the remainder of the Wargamer's Newsletter booklet on terrain. I certainly hope you will be attempting sloping battlefields sometime soon. And you know you always wanted a sandtable, though they always remind me of my kids' sand-pit in the garden when I was with my first family - whoever lives in that house now must still be getting ancient Matchbox Toys rising mysteriously out of the depths. Would you really put your lovely soldiers in a sandtable? - really? Well, you're a brave chap.

Once again, many thanks to Albannach and his private museum.

Featherstonia: Wargames Terrain [part 1]

 More from the old Wargamer's Newsletter - this time sent in by Albannach, fine fellow and avid collector that he is. This is WN's publication on Wargames Terrain; because it's a biggie I'll do it in two parts.

This item is more for the interest of seeing what the current thoughts on the topic were in the 1970s, rather than offering anything which is likely to change your way ahead now, but please enjoy...

Sieges: Back to the Little Stuff

Suitably inspired by all the work being done in my garden, I took the opportunity this afternoon to return my attention to the toys - to clean up and sort out some of my siege bits and pieces, and make more sense of the way they are stored. 

As I'm learning (and I'm quite happy about it - the amount of kit is a large part of the spectacle and the enjoyment), tabletop sieges use a lot of scenic pieces. I already had a good collection of walls and defences and buildings - medieval and Vauban-period - and I now have a growing mass of earthworks, gun emplacements and so on, to support serious sieges. I really do need to get this lot stored in a logical and practical way. So work is under way!

 

Here's something strange spread across the attic floor - there are 4 trays of hand-made trench sections (which can also double as earth walls placed in front of pre-gunpowder stone defences) and gun emplacements, all supplied by the excellent Fat Frank, then, at the front, a tray of assorted cast-resin pieces, various makers (I note that a few of these still need painting, by the way).

In the left foreground, open, is a badly thought-out view of a brown wooden cigar box containing 4" x 1" brown felt strips - these are for use as forward saps in my Vauban's Wars games (and, of course, any other games which might wish to borrow them). My starting idea is that you get two of these strips as a single piece of Sapper Activity action, when cued by the appropriate Sequence Card. You may lay them as you wish. Obviously, the speed of forward sapping will be closely related to how obliquely you place the strips - in the house parlance, to the angle of zig-zag. If your sap is enfiladed from the defences, you have done it wrong. There are no excuses. The closer you get to the fortress, the more extreme will be the zig-zag profile of the sap, and thus the slower the rate of approach.

There is another box (closed) at about 3 o'clock in the picture - again, not a great visual - in there is my collection of assorted multiple and single gabions - some of which also need some paint, now I look at them.

I propose to put the Fat Frank pieces in a box of their own, since this will be the main supply for the building of parallels and batteries by the busy besiegers. The rest can be stored separately as a back-up supply.

Near the top of the picture are a couple of very old Bellona gun positions, which are really just present for old-times' sake.

[In the real world, my driveway is now ready for the gravel, and one of the two trees nominated for removal has been severely wrecked - about two-thirds of the bulk has gone, though the main "frame" of trunk and big branches is to be removed tomorrow, along with, I hope, most of the second tree. Good progress - we've been very lucky with the weather.]