Last week I have played some games again finally. My father visited and we played some simple and quick games.
W1815 U&P games
The first 4 games where W1815. The famous battle of waterloo. This is a simple game which if you know the rules can be played in 15 minutes. But as it was the first time we played this game, it took 30 min for the first game. It is a very simple game. No movement, max 1d6 dice roll. And fixed orders.
It played very nicely, although I lost 3 out of the 4 games, I have really enjoyed them. So if you search for a gap-filler kind of wargame, just check it out.
One hour wargame modern (Ww2)
The second game was a one hour modern wargame. Two rusian equiped armies met each other in a standoff battle (scenario 1 from the book) we used the ww2 version of the rules, like some african countries withour air support available.
It worked reasonable well. The scenario is not very good for modern fights as it has no cover available. In the end I lost again. But we had a good game night. Hopefully some more games in the future..
A small update for last week. I have made some progress and played a game. My father and I have played our second game of chain of command. Knowing the rules better it went more smootly. But we have still some things to learn. The scenario was a village road crossing, trying to be captured by both sides. My father played the 1940 Dutch forces, and I the opposing German forces. It ended with a firefight accros one of the roads, with the fire power of my mg34 defeating the Bike platoon of the Dutch.
The crossroad. With my squads on the left side, and the bike cycle platoon on the right in a firefight.
Next to the game I have also managed to do some painting/creating. I have started to make a terrain cloth, with canvas lined with chaulk. I have mixed some color into the chaulk, creating a nice earth tone. This is the first very thin layer. Next I hope to apply a second layer, mixing some sand in it, to get a rougher texture. After that I will apply some grass/turf to create some random landscape.
Terrain cloth
I have also spend some time painting the cold war Dutch airforce planes, just spending an sunday afternoon hour. Still a lot of work to do. But progress is progress.
all the cold war Dutch Air force planes, and some USAF 32nd TSF stationed in the Netherlands. Also the B 52 didn’t fit somewhere else, so resides also in this box. I painted the F4’s, some Thunderstreaks and T33 and started with the gloster meteors. Hope to make some more detailed photos when they are finished.
During the weekend I found some time to start the campaign. So I played the first 3 campaign turns. Next step are two battles, to end turn 3.
Start of the campaign. Two armies are marching from the South in the west. And the other three in the middle south
Above you can see the start of the campaign. Red pawns are my armies, black pawns are Potential Enemy Forces, turning into a yellow pawn, when resolved to be an enemy army.
My plan is to march with two different groups, as quickly as possible to the capital. Due to the rivers and roads, these two entry point would be the quickest.
End of turn 1 (blue D20 as turn marker in bottom right)
After turn one, marching up along the roads. Enemy movement was not that much, which is quite logical as they will try to defend.
End of turn 2, Slowly marching forward
Closing in on the first bigger towns, enemy forces, will try to block the road.
Battle time turn 3
In the West, I tried to sneak past the enemy, but their scouts got news of our troops, and did catch the second army by surprise. In the East, they just blocked the road and hope to stop us as soon as possible, by moving forward one of their armies. I don’t know what they have in reserve.
On both fronts it turns into a battle. I still have to roll for the scenarios, and find my troops. I have found a solution for the playing area. A printed grid, with some fields from google earth in the background.
I didn’t have time to play the first game, but looking forward to them. Until now, it was just half an hour, including setup and finding nice pawns. Up to the battle next.
The only army which is in a reasonable state to play some games, is the 2mm Napoleonic armies. I want to play some more games this years, and play also some solo. Therefore I have ventured into the realms om Imagination.
The basic idea is, to have a simple campaign system, without a lot of bookkeeping. Playing multiple battles in an evening or Sunday afternoon. I have created some backstory. Probably not the best. But a reason to move some troops and play games.
The campaign system is created by myself, simple moving some armies from area to area, to secure the capital, and destroy the enemy army. Enemy movement is mostly based on the chainreaction system from two hour wargames.
The battle which will happen when two armies will occupy one area, will be played out with the Simplicity in Hexes rules, which I found on the blog of Jay Ward, with again some enemy behaviour based on the chainreation system of THW. Scenarios will be coming from the One Hour wargames book of Neil Thomas. The terrain will be a hex landscape, slightly larger as in the rules, for visual reasons.
Below I will tell the background story, and show the map. The map has been created with the help of the fantasy map generator on the web. (see link below) the data has been exported to QGis, a map making tool. Playing around, some visual formatting was done. If you like the map, you can download it for your own projects, and also the more detailed rules for the campaign in the links provided at the bottom.
The land of Ukkhinbar. The capital is the largest city in the land (denoted by the square)
Background story
The year is 1785, 7 years after Marcus Fontusius Rethida and his sister Cillia Rethida were forced to leave their beloved country Ukkhinbar. They had grown up as prince and princes at the royal court in the Capital Wawic. But had to flee south during the coup. Their own nephew had murdered their father and crowned himself emperor. Now it was the time to march back to their hometown. Five large armies listened to their command. When they had left, they had been young. Heading south they found rest in Segifell. A rough city, were you’re live was most precious. They had met an old man, which had taken them into house. The 17 year old twins, had been weeping and sleeping for a week, they had lost everything. Only the ring, received from their father was still on their finger. The man tried to comfort them, and learned them a riddle: “Bait with smelt to catch a cod” The first year they worked here and there. Creating more and more connections, and growing a larger network. Both on the legal side as on the dark side of the world. After three years, Marcus and Cillia started to think about revenge on their Nephew. They started to employ people for their cause. Now after the 7 years, they have amassed 5 armies. Built from mercenaries, pirates and adventurers. But very loyal, as long as they paid regularly. They had only a limited amount of money, so they had to do a quick campaign. Moving as swiftly as possible, to liberate the capital. After that they would deal with the rest of the country, but would have access to the treasure of the crown to pay the armies. Spies are reporting multiple armies which are defending the capital and surrounding lands. The only way to their home, is forward.
Deployment
Enemy start with 9 PEF Armies
You start with 5 armies, two under command of Marcus and three under command of Cillia.
Each army is 6 units. Scenario determines how many units are involved in each battle. Following OHW scenarios
Scouts have reported nine possible enemy forces (PEF), you will enter the lands from the south.
You start on southern edge, with 5 armies, deploy as you wish.
Enemy start northern cities with 9 PEFs. 1 PEF start at other side of water to the right.
each campaign turn is 1 day.
Capital must be reached within 30 days, to ensure you can pay the armies to complete the campaign.
Plan
I hope to start the campaign next weekend, most of the things are ready.
rules
armies
dice
terrain pieces
Only the hex grid for the scenarios I have to arrange. I have the possibility to print on white paper. The files are ready, but I am thinking in a little more pleasing solution, with more eye candy. I don’t have a solution yet.
This is just my first try, to play a campaign, have a backstory. I don’t know how it will turn out. And probably adapt the rules on the fly. Hope it will make some fun.
Last week we played the Battle of the three roads I posted earlier on. I did not have time to do more preparation. So we just decided to play the scenario, with the rules from the 2-by-2 rule set. I try to describe the changes we made below.
The map we used
We used the map as shown on top. We copied it to the gaming cloth I made. Unfortunatly I did not have enough forest to cover all the forest, so those had to be drawn in. We didn’t include a lot of terrain rules from the scenario. Skipped the weather section. We used the following rules:
The passing trough the water at the top left is fordable, on a 5+ for infantery, and on a 4+ for horses. The French did have a pontoon brigade, which could construct a bridge, allowing easy passage. On a 1-3 it would take 1 turn to construct the bridge, on a 4-6 it would take two turns. Optionally it could be tried to build a bridge on a different spot, but only on a 6+ they would find a suitable spot.
For the high ground in the middle, we decided that people below could see and fire at people up to the road (which runs in the middle of the high ground) If you were on the other side of the road you would be safe.
For deployment, the British would deploy most forces as wished for in the op third of the map. And act as defending forces, only a small portion would act as reinforcements. For the French would start with a small force on the table, and would have to wait for reinforcement every turn. The total French force was larger than the British, but due to the slow reinforcements the British could defeat them small batches.
The goal for the French was to leave the map with an as large as possible force, at the two exits at the top, behind the river. The British should prevent this. The French did have two corps, every corp would rout if 3 or more units were destroyed. (acting independently from each other). The British side would route if 6 or more units were destroyed.
British Forces
The British were divided in three main forces:
1st Netherlands Division: Stedmann
3 regiments of line Infantry
1 battery of foot artillery
4th British Division: Colville
1 regiment of guards
1 regiments of line Infantry
1 piece of foot artillery
Hanoverian Reserve: von der Decken
2 regiment of guards
2 regiments of line Infantry
1 piece of foot artillery
Attachments:
1 squadron of heavy cavalry
1 squadron of light cavalry
French Forces
The French had two Corpses
I Corps: d’Erlon
8 regiments of line Infantry
1 battery of foot artillery
1 squadron of light cavalry
II Corps: Reille
8 regiments of line Infantry
1 battery of foot artillery
1 squadron of light cavalry
Attachments:
1 company of Engineer/pontoniers
As you can see in the forces list, the French are numerical superior, but the British do have slightly better infantry units. Combined with their deployment advantage, we hoped this would match them up evenly.
Battle started
The Battlefield, the highground.
The Battle started with the advance of the two different French corpses towards the top corner (A and B) The British decided to defend near the town and the bridge (C and D)
The French closing in on the Bridge, while the British scouting force was heading back to the other side of the bridge.
This resulted in a firefight and artillery bombardment at both sides of the bridge. (See F on the map)
On the other side the corps did get confused with the heavy cavelry moving close by, and was in the end locked in at the forest at E. After a couple of turn this force started to break, and even some cavalry reinforcements, did prevent the collapse of this front.
On the other side things started to look better, when the first regiment formed a bridgehead at the other side. But reinforcment and relieve couldn’t bring in quick enough. Resulting in a stalled fight. The British which defeated the forces at E now diverted to the bridge, making the situation very risky for the French. A quick break through didn’t happen, and a major retreat had to be called by the French.
The British came out very victorious, by only loosing two regiments of infantry, but slaying 4 French regiments of infantry, a squadron of light cavalry, the HQ of one of the corpses, and capturing the engineering/Pontoon brigade.
Conclusion
This was a real fun game. I had quite a busy week, and did not have a lot of time in preparation. And we had to decide the rules of the scenario at the beginning. But the rules flowed very well, felt quite even matched and did give a nice gaming night. In hindsight I should have focused on one attacking location, and combined the two corpses on the left side (D), hoping to tumble the fronts one, by one. I think we will play more of these games in the future.
