Maria de Huerva (15th June 1809) - I've just played a game named Maria...

Wargaming yesterday. Things have been a bit confusing lately, but luckily Goya was able to organise a free day, and he came down to these parts for a Peninsular game, which offered a very welcome diversion for me.

Suchet (that's me, folks) thinking that these Spanish fellows fight a lot better than he had expected

This was an engagement between GdD (later Marshal) Louis-Gabriel Suchet and part of the Spanish Northern Army under Joaquin Blake. Our game was based upon the scenario published in Expansion #1 of Commands & Colors: Napoleonics - tweaked a little to reflect the relative strengths in the actual battle. In the historical battle, Suchet, having left a garrison in Saragossa, and having split off Leval's Division to protect the roads to that city, had some 10,000 men in the field. Blake was advancing north on both sides of the River Huerba, Areizaga's (large) Division being some miles from the action, so he had about 14,000.

We used the latest edition of the Ramekin Versions (based on CCN); both armies had a small off-table reserve available - Suchet spent the day waiting for Robert's brigade to join him, while Blake sort of hoped that Areizaga might condescend to send him some help when he heard the guns. In fact, neither of these reserves played any part - Robert arrived right at the end, when the game was already decided, and Blake was so stretched keeping the French at bay that he had no spare orders to do anything about a reserve, so Areizaga's chaps, wherever they were, were not much help.

In the real battle, Blake's troops demonstrated against Musnier's Division, on the French right, in an attempt to goad the French into attacking them (the Spanish position was along a very presentable ridge, and the Spanish Army - especially in this game - is at its best when defending ground of its own choosing). On the French left, Wathier's cavalry brigade advanced, and frightened the Spanish cavalry from the field, leaving the infantry's flank exposed - the Spanish right crumbled, but Blake did a creditable job of withdrawing his army, and the defeat was not the complete disaster it might have been.

So much for history. Our game didn't really go like that at all. The field looks a bit barren - that is correct - apart from the parallel lines of hills, the scene was more or less featureless. For the record, Suchet and Co were rated as "Good" commanders for the day, and Blake as "Competent". C&CN Tactician Cards were in use, and 7 Victory Points were required for the win.

General view at the start, from behind the French left flank. From this end, the French have Habert's infantry brigade, plus Wathier's cavalry, and on the ridge is Musnier's division, with the Vistula Lancers attached. The Spaniards, on the other side of the field are, from this end, Col O'Donnell with the flank force, then the Divisions of Lazan (front) and Roca (rear). The Spaniards were all regular troops - no provinciales, no irregulars. The Monasterio de Santa Fe is in the foreground.

Spanish in a good defensive position. Blake is visible with the yellow border to his base, in the background.

Spanish light troops - these are the Cazadores de Barbastro, on the left end of the line.

More general view of the Spanish position, with Musnier's French on the right edge of the photo. That gap between the two ridges was a real killing ground.

Musnier finds it hard to get started, as his men are taking casualties already.

Quick aerial view of the Monasterio, with prize-winning vegetable plot visible.

It's very rare for my Vistula Lancers to put in a good performance, but on this occasion they got it right, and probably won the day for the French in the end. Occasionally they strayed too far from their command to be able to receive orders, which was a nuisance, but when they were good they were very good.

View from behind the Spanish left - having gone off the idea of a straight frontal attack, Musnier sends out a force (just visible at the left edge) to attempt to turn the left flank of the Spanish front line 

Here his leading battalion gets up onto the Spanish ridge, though they look very short of friends at this point

They were repulsed, and again lack of command was a problem as the French tried to advance

Over on the Spanish right, O'Donnell, with grenadiers, light cavalry and light infantry (1st Cataluna, in the foreground), fought doggedly and impressively

There weren't as many as there had been, but Lazan's force sorted themselves out and began to win some VPs of their own. They got the situation back from 2-6 to 4-6, and Suchet was getting very nervous

Musnier rode out to take personal command of the flank attack - that's him on the left, with the white base-border.

Now there is a 3-pronged attack (dashing, but not much support available), in the foreground, Musnier with the 2/86eme attacks the Regto de Africa, who are still fresh; in the centre, the lancers turn to threaten the Regto de Ribero, who are already fighting (very well) against more French infantry

Musnier and friends are making short work of Africa - lots of red markers in evidence on the Spanish left flank

Leadership in action - Musnier encouraging his lads...

...when suddenly there is a dastardly Spanish trick, and they play a Short Supply card - we don't know what it was that the 86eme were running out of, but whatever it was they were obliged to whizz back to the baseline to get some more

At this point, at long last, Suchet was delighted to see Robert's brigade appear from the direction of Saragossa, on the edge of the field by Santa Fe - the sight probably didn't cheer up the Spaniards very much, but Robert had no time to contribute much to the French effort...

...because the Vistula Lancers, in a "Combined Arms" attack with support from artillery across the valley, now eliminated the battered Regto de Ribero...

...and that was that - the French had won 7-4

A good game - no real problems with the rules or the scenario. The Spanish put up a good show, but they always have problems - they fight well enough, but moving fire is poor, and in melees they are reliable only when they are standing firm. The biggest disadvantage is the double-retreat rule - if they do fall back, they fall back a long way, and if the retreat is blocked they suffer losses instead.

Afterwards we retired to Zitto in North Berwick for food and deep analysis - always a good idea. Subsequently, things slipped a bit when Goya's train of choice was cancelled, but he managed to get a later one without problem, and made it home safely.

Some history with your wargame, sir? - one lump or two?

Gilder vs Griffith: Gettysburg on the telly - a Type (2) game?

I was pondering a gentle conundrum from my experience of wargaming during yesterday morning's walk on the beach. Naturally, I couldn't just keep it to myself...
 

I guess that most of us started off in the hobby with a handful of soldiers and a couple of books or magazines, and we got fired up by the published photos of other people's efforts, and we maybe visited a local club, and we probably filed away a vague ambition that one day we would fight Waterloo (or Cannae, or Gettysburg) on our very own tabletop. And quite right, too - what could be more reasonable, or motivating?

I had a total sabbatical from wargaming for a period of maybe 12 years, and then from about 2001 until a few years ago I usually played solo, which is OK to a point, and I took the opportunity to try out some gaming situations that might not sit too comfortably in a social context. I played some very unbalanced games and some very long-winded ones - sometimes cued by a campaign narrative, and I tried some experimentation with sieges, computer-managed miniatures rules, various things. In a solo session, it is instructive and entertaining to see what happens in a game that would not necessarily be optimal for a social get-together. This is not to claim any particular advantages in having no mates - it is merely making the point that solo games do work, but have to be approached in an appropriate way.

Of course, historical scenarios are always appealing. I believe, however, that it's necessary to approach them with some caution. During yesterday's beach walk, I was trying to consider the various flavours of this.

(1) A deliberate walk-through - a demonstration, maybe for a public event, or even TV (which is what we had before YouTube). By this I mean that the tabletop proceedings are entirely scripted, there is no randomising element, and the presenters are normally not given any freedom to depart from the historical narrative, though they may, of course, make reference to decision points and possible alternative courses of action which were available to the original participants. Typically, these events are very luxuriously presented, and have to make allowance for the fact that the audience is going to include:

* true enthusiasts, many of whom will feel the need to disagree with just about any aspect of the scenery, the OOB, the recorded facts, the uniforms, the figure scale, the personalities etc etc.

* people who are casually interested in the topic, and are keen to see it demonstrated - these will normally be less difficult.

* those who have no real interest (they arrived with their brother, or kids, or boyfriend, or just came in because it is raining), but may enjoy the spectacle of the set-up - these people can be alienated within about three minutes if the presenters forget about them.

This is such a specialised sort of event that it probably falls outside the scope of what I was thinking about. I have, on very rare occasions, been involved in such things - usually as a gopher or box-carrier, and the pressures are mostly connected with logistics, rehearsal, thorough research, professional-standard presentation.

(2) A game scenario - an actual game, played competitively with rules. Such games are usually subtitled as a re-fight of the original. The scenario may be fudged a little, to give each side a chance of winning, or to simplify some tricky aspect of the real battle. Typically, play will start at some key point (not necessarily the beginning), and it may be limited to some localised part of the action (the Russian left flank, the second day, whatever). The design of the scenario will reflect the rules and the game-scales in use, and may also show traces of personal (sometimes patriotic) bias. There are likely to be some scripted events within the game - thus your Waterloo-scenario game will feature the arrival of the Prussians around tea-time, and it is a safe bet that there will be a lot of fighting around La Haye Sainte.

(3) A game, based loosely on a historical event. It may be that the generals are given their original OOBs and allowed to set up as they choose - any degrees of freedom are possible - for example, the game may feature some what-ifs, to explore what would have happened if the background to the battle had been different. The essence here is of a game which has some similarities to a historical event.

That's probably enough to be going on with. In both of (2) or (3), the players are starting the game with some information which their historical counterparts did not have.

* What actually happened, and why - there may be a tendency to follow the history, even if it is a dumb thing to do (I write with some sorrowful experience here); if we decide to do something else, the reasoning behind our choice will still reflect some unrealistic level of knowledge, or received analysis. The scenario rules themselves may be tweaked to fit the history.

* The players, having turned up specially for the day's event, know that they are here for the Battle of Waterloo, for example (which the original soldiers did not), thus it is very unlikely that a preliminary contact between skirmishers will be followed by Wellington marching his army off the table towards Antwerp.

All this is perfectly acceptable - a fine time will still be enjoyed by all - it would be naive to expect any unreasonable correspondence between the battle and the game. The game itself is the thing.

What has intrigued me recently has been my own involvement in designing such historically-based game scenarios. My usual starting place is looking at someone else's scenario, and deciding I'd like to improve upon it, to give a different size of game, or to correct (perceived) distortions in the field or the troops, or to produce something more suitable for my house rules. I admit that I do not need a particularly convincing excuse to get involved in this, because it is the most enormous fun - books all over the dining table, with index cards stuck in key references - Martinien, Oman, Elting & Esposito, Dr Nafziger, Uncle Tom Cobley, and masses of online searches. Sheets and sheets of scribbled notes. I have a terrific time, getting stuck into this kind of thing.

The resulting game may not be perfect, admittedly, but it will certainly have engaged a lot of sincere effort to produce it. The thing which has struck me is that it may be a reasonable game, but if I take part in it myself I find I can be distracted by all the things which I have thought about during the research. In short, a designed scenario is maybe more satisfying for players who have had less previous involvement!

I've always seen a strong appeal in the situation offered by Howard Whitehouse's Science vs Pluck game system (set in the Sudan Wars), whereby players are each given just as much knowledge of the military situation and of the rules as they need, and a god-like umpire who knows everything there is to know (or is authorised to make it up on the spot) runs the game. I have no direct experience of such games, but I can see how that would make sense.

Anyway - none of this is any problem at all - it may be a small argument in favour of the game designer being the umpire rather than a player - it's worth thinking about. What intrigues me about this is that the designer's previous work on the research may actually give him a disadvantage in the game, which seems counterintuitive!

Fortunately it wasn't a very long walk, so that is as far as I got with my ponderings. Here are some gratuitous beach pictures.

Early morning vapour-trail graffiti - Scottish saltire?

In it's day (when it was still working) this is reputed to have been the smallest working harbour in Britain

Hooptedoodle #342 - Chrysopidae

The Green Lacewing - these chaps live all over the Northern Hemisphere - very successful. I rather like them - they are peaceful and elegant, of modest dimensions, and do no harm. This time of year we always have a few around the house, but they blend in with their surroundings and don't move about much. If you have a lacewing sharing your room it will not be a nuisance.

Further to this, they are very good news for the garden - their larvae, which are surprisingly fierce, ugly beggars, have a voracious appetite for aphids - the larvae are also reputed to sting humans occasionally - we never see these indoors [that's the larvae, not humans].

Nearly twenty years ago, when I had recently moved into the original version of our current house, I had an ancient, mains-powered front doorbell. [When did you last see one of those?]

One day it stopped working - after a week or two of relying on the knocker, I spent an afternoon trying to work out what was wrong - checked the transformer and the wiring, cleaned out the push-button. Eventually I opened up the bell unit itself, and found that it was jammed with adult lacewings - all dead. There were dozens of them - possibly a hundred or more. I guess they had been hibernating, since it seems unlikely they would have hatched in there. I had a slightly nervous feeling that I was in a sci-fi movie, but I am assured that this is not an uncommon event, though they usually choose their sleeping place with more care. I don't know whether the lacewings had just died of the cold in there or whether something had trapped or injured them.

I never cared much for the mains electric doorbell anyway, so subsequently it has been replaced by a series of battery-powered ones which send a little radio signal to bell units placed around the house. The present one plays a grating, ice-cream van version of Fur Elise, which is useful since it encourages us to race to the door in case the postman presses the button a second time.

The Asides of History

With grateful thanks to Slap at Monkey Tennis

Hooptedoodle #341 - Maybe not the Moon, then?

Noah sat at the kitchen table and glowered at his mother, who was bustling about, preparing for whatever it was she had said they were going to do. What he really wanted was to get back to playing with the rude noises he had downloaded on his smartphone, but experience told him this current inconvenience might not last too long. Noah was four. To pass the time, he idly punched his twin sister, Olivia, who was sitting next to him, staring out of the window at the pigeons on the garage roof. Olivia spun round in her chair, with a grimace, to find him staring innocently at their mother, who was having some problems.

Katharine was attaching some large sheets of paper to the front of the refrigerator, using button magnets. Because the sheets of paper had been rolled up for a while, they needed extra magnets at the bottom to stop them curling up. Once they were hanging straight and flat, she found they were in the wrong order, so with a little tut-tutting she swapped them around until everything was right. She cleared her throat and took a telescopic pointer from the mug on the adjacent windowsill.

"Righto, you guys," she said, "we need to spend a few minutes revisiting our plans for our holiday this year."

No response - Olivia had gone back to staring out of the window, and Noah just carried on glowering, thinking about his phone.

Katharine continued.

"Now, these are the results of our brainstorm from March. You remember that we decided that the most important things - the things that you said mattered most to you for this year's trip - were that we wanted to go somewhere really quiet and somewhere that offered the very best sandcastle-making facilities ever. You will recall that we got into a bit of an argument about some of this, and the meeting was cut short because Noah pulled Olivia's hair, but - as we left it - we were looking at the possibility of going to the Moon. I have to say I was never completely comfortable with this choice, though we have to keep faith with the process, as I always say..." she laughed nervously, "but I think we can't put this meeting off any longer."

She paused, partly for dramatic effect, partly to take a very deep breath.

"It looks as though the Moon is not going to be a possibility, Twinnies. I'm really, really sorry, but there are some big problems. I've been doing some more reading, and I really think we should go somewhere else."

The screaming started immediately.

"But you PROMISED!" roared Olivia. "You said we could go anywhere we wanted - that it was our choice. You told us a LIE!"

"Promised...  lie..." echoed Noah, kicking his sister under the table.

"No, no," protested Katharine, "Mummy would never tell you a lie, you know that. It's just that, well, the Moon is a very difficult and expensive place to get to, and our car won't be able to get there, and we can't afford to buy a car that could. I don't know very much about the Moon, as I told you last time. It seems it's always the details that cause the trouble - there wouldn't be any ice cream, and one thing that worries me rather a  lot is that there is no air there, so we would all die. That wouldn't be very good would it?"

"But you promised," said Olivia, tearful now. "I don't care about the stupid air! I want to go to THE MOON. I told Victoria that we were going, too. You said we could go anywhere we wanted. That was a LIE. I'm going to call Child Line"

Noah was calmer.

"Where will we go instead?"

"Well, Daddy and I thought we could go back to that super camp-site at Ilfracombe - remember what a lovely time we had there last time? We think it would be marvellous."

"Last time it was raining," said Noah, "and I cut my foot on the beach. I don't want to go there. Anyway, the toilets were smelly."

This was not going well. Katharine fell back on her methodology training - it had never failed her before. She raised her voice a little, to be heard above Olivia, who was now sobbing on the table, her face laid on her arms.

"Well, we could start again with new Terms of Reference, and we could have another brainstorm - that would be the best and fairest thing to do, I think. You two happy with that?"

The meeting ended at this point. Noah pushed his sister off her chair, and she banged her head on the recycling tub, and there was a lot of screaming. Katharine put her pointer back in the mug and went to rescue her daughter.

It was true. She had, in fact, promised. That was the worst bit of the whole thing. 

Comfortably Familiar

I've had a relatively quiet week, so decided to do something about reading some of the books I've been acquiring. After some dithering about, just to be awkward, I picked on one I've had for years and years - Charles Grant's The War Game - I haven't read it for a long time, but recently I bought a couple of companion volumes produced by Charles Grant the Younger - The War Game Companion and The War Game Rules, so it seemed appropriate to have a look at all three together.

Thus I settled down with the original book, and I must say I'm really enjoying it. A nice, traditional, bottom-up development of how to play 18th Century wargames, starting from a consideration of how quickly men can march, and setting off at a comfortable, relaxed pace to cover the whole subject. Black and white photos of bounce-sticks, canister frames, huge regiments of free-standing Spencer Smith's. Brilliant. I have to say that I have no wish to play the actual game as described, but it is a very pleasant read - it's thorough, sensibly presented and written in an amiably genteel style, as is perfectly correct for its vintage. It is also, I freely admit, useful to revisit those fundamental assumptions and conventions which we have all taken for granted for so many decades.

I am interested to note that one of the more recent companion volumes discusses how the game has been adapted to use multiple bases - I must have a look at that. And then there is a discussion of campaigns. These rules have been in constant use and continuous evolution since 1971, when the original book was published, and they were already well played-in long before that, so we may safely assume that they work.

Anyway, in the meantime I'm quite happy with a glass of wine and my friendly old, non-threatening book. Very nostalgic.

***** Late Edit *****

There must be something in the wind - entirely coincidentally, I now realise that I have published this post almost simultaneously with a splendid commemoration of Young & Lawford's Blasthof Bridge game from Charge! on Wellington Man's most excellent Hinton Spieler blog- if you haven't seen it, go over there and enjoy it.  

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

Hooptedoodle #340 - The Elephant That Never Forgets

Thread A

Years ago, I opened a savings account with the old Northern Rock Building Society (of Newcastle), because (as I recall) at the time they were paying reasonable interest (remember interest, by the way?). Sometime thereafter Northern Rock was taken over by Virgin Money, and for about 5 years now I have been thinking to myself, why do I keep this account open? It doesn't pay me anything, so as you would notice, and its utility to me is not worth all the junk mail - it's just a sort of float fund. Each month I pondered this briefly, decided that I should do something about it, and then forgot about it for another month.

Now I am informed that Virgin Money has become part of Clydesdale Bank, which cues up a bit of personal history.


Thread B

In (I think) 1979 I returned from a family holiday and we were unpacking when the doorbell rang. On the step there was a gentleman in a suit, who handed me a sealed letter for which I had to sign. It was notification from the John Lewis Partnership that they had started legal proceedings to recover the money I owed them. The holiday was suddenly a distant memory. What on earth was this?

All a bit unfortunate really - I had moved house a couple of years before, and we had had our new kitchen refitted and modernised - my architect, my tradesmen, but the furniture and equipment came from John Lewis. Since the other parties in this project had no interest in waiting for payment, I spread the pain a little by taking out an 18-month credit agreement (what used to be called hire purchase) for part of my bill to JLP. That way I could still do other things, such as eat, and take my family on holiday. That's the way it was done in those days.

I never thought any more about it. Sadly, my bankers (Clydesdale) made a little mistake, and terminated the monthly payments a year early. The date was correct, but the year was wrong. Well, they were only a bank, for goodness sake.

When John Lewis realised that I had done the dirty on them, they began sending me letters about the balance - there were a number of these, getting progressively more assertive and showing more red headings. Again, another small misfortune. They sent these letters to the wrong address - this was because my previous address was still held on my shopping account with them, though the hire purchase agreement correctly showed the new address, which was also where they had delivered the kitchen fittings. Just another bad break.

Of course we got things sorted out fairly quickly. No lasting damage, except that I had a dodgy credit rating for a few years, through no fault of my own. Lewis's got their money, our kitchen was very satisfactory. Thank you very much.

At the end of the episode I requested a meeting with my Clydesdale Bank branch manager, just to ensure everything was cleared up. You will find this hard to believe, but apparently said manager (Mr Harper - I remember him very well) misunderstood why we were having the meeting, and in fact misunderstood what had happened - I am convinced that his staff did not tell him. Not only was there no apology forthcoming, Mr Harper was very sanctimonious about the whole thing (well, he was obviously a busy man, and I was unforgivably young at the time), and he informed me that he would take it as a personal favour if I could avoid such occurrences in future, and ensure that my finances were kept in order. I regret to say that the discussion became a little heated, I closed my accounts at Clydesdale on the spot, and promised Mr Harper that I would never do business with his bank again, neither would I countenance any of my friends or family doing so. Mr Harper, for his part, looked at his watch and announced that he was delighted to hear it.

This is now laughable in the extreme, since there can be hardly anyone left alive who worked for Clydesdale in 1979, but I see no reason to change my views. A promise is a promise - in the retail banking business, at least the customers must strive for a little integrity. I have now closed my Virgin accounts. I refuse to be associated with Clydesdale, even by transfer of ownership, even after all these years.

No-one will notice, of course, and if they did they wouldn't care, but it matters to me. One has to be true to oneself.

Stuff them.