Maritime Musings

Ever since I began my latest kick, I've been researching rules and miniatures/counters. Here is a rundown of my meandering thought process.

What Period?

This is the first question I grappled with. The Dawlish novel I'm reading is set in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. This seems to be on the cusp between "ironclads" and "pre-dreadnoughts."

When I researched "ironclads," I kept finding American Civil War stuff. Not really interested in that. Being an Austrophile, I toyed with the idea of doing Lissa. I even picked up David Manley's Broadside & Ram in my researches. However, pictures of the ships (including this beautiful game) revealed too many sails and masts for my liking.

This post was turning into a wall of text so here is a picture of Lissa.
From https://picryl.com/media/constantine-volanakis-naval-battle-at-lissa-efabee

Another issue is that I want to standardize things with smattering of ship classes. Ironclads just seem to have a widely diverse array of ship types.

I also was drawn to smaller actions, like those in the book. This led me to look into World War 2 coastal actions. I gave a look at Manley's Narrow Seas. However, I don't want to fiddle around with aircraft so I quickly drifted away from WW2.

As a result of these meanderings, I found myself drawn to pre-dreadnoughts.

What Rules?

Next up is finding rules. Actually, it's more of a case of finding rules to use as a model for writing my own. Nowadays, I try to mold everything into my MicroBattle framework. Those rules just work well for me!

Poking around has led me to a few sets that seem helpful.

• Pz8's wargame rules collection, which includes WW2 naval and coastal action rules
• Bob Cordery's pre-dreadnought rules in his Gridded Naval Wargames
• Manley's Broadside & Salvo

I even considered sci-fi rules, which often tend to be WW2 in space. I gave Castles in the Sky a look. Ironically, this led me to an old set that I created! Interestingly, I gamed this on an 8 x 6 grid. Just the perfect size! I think I need to play around with these rules a bit!

Note: I remember initially using range bands for these old rules, a la Pz8.

What Figures?

Well, the rules search is shaping up. I just need some mins to test rules ideas.

I had some miniatures from Irregular's 2mm 20th century boats, but it appears that I got rid of them in last year's purge!

How about counters? Most counter sets are for specific ships and I just want generic ones. This leads me to making my own. I just need some models for inspiration. While researching, I came across Bob Cordery's fleet. Just what I want!

Just when I thought I knew which path to take, my wife threw a curveball at me. She gave me a 3D printer for my birthday. Once I figure out how to use it, I can print my own miniatures!

Scenarios

I'm still leaning toward small-ship actions, so expect torpedo boats, destroyers, and maybe a cruiser rather than battleships!

I'm also leaning towards a fictional Austro-Italian War in the 1890s.

Anyway, that's where the project stands right now!

To the Sea!

Just as I was getting a set of gladiator rules in order, GADD struck again and I've moved on to other interests.

This time, the culprit behind my GADD is a book. Specifically this one.

This book is chock full of action scenes that just beg to be wargames. It's given me a hankering for some naval action. I envision a campaign of small ship actions. Perhaps a couple of torpedo boats attacking enemy shipping, bombarding coastal emplacements, and tackling the opposition's counterparts.

Rules?

As I careen down this rabbit hole, the first question I have is what rules to use. More specifically, I ask what rules can I modify. Nowadays, I tend to take ideas from other rules and plug them into my MicroBattle framework. Works best for me.

My main issue is lack of space. I generally find myself with about 1 foot square of gaming space. That generally is not enough for full-scale naval maneuvers. For air combat, I solved the problem by using abstract relative movement. I'm not sure how to do that with naval.

I'm also not sure what era to use. I kind of prefer ironclads, but most rules in this era are American Civil War (no interest) or fleet battles. I'm not really finding much for smaller ships. I could use rules for coastal actions in WW2. I'm not sure it will have the ironclad feel. I suppose I should look into ACW.

Anyway, I'm still searching for rules.

Figures

The next question is what figures to use. 

I have a small selection on Irregular Miniatures 2mm modern ships. I could dig those out. I'm not sure I have all the ones I need for my desired games and I don't really want to order more.

I'm also thinking of making counters. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Finally, there is the possibility that I could convert this project to a sci fi game - essentially navies in space.

Gladiator Games

Sometimes I don't feel like setting up a scenario. I just want to throw down some figures and start rolling dice. In the past, I've toyed with gladiator games but never really got very far with them. Recently, I've been toying with gladiators again.

Problem 1: Figures

I don't really have any figures to use. I used to have some 10mm fantasy figures that would work, such as the infamous Nocan the Barbarian.

I considered getting some new miniatures but I'm just not enthused by the idea. Perhaps I'll look into paper figures.

For now, however, I'm going with Meeples.

Problem 2: Rules

I'm not sure what rules to use. I thought about MicroQuest, my homebrew RPG rules. They work fine for theater of the mind RPG fights, but they're a tad boring for tabletop one-on-one fights. There is no maneuvering, so the figures just sit there.

Experiments

I decided to play around with some rules ideas.

Attempt 1

I'm using 2 vanilla gladiators - sword, no shield, no armor.

The rules work thusly:

1. Move - Each gladiator rolls D3. Alternate moving 1 space.
2. Maneuver - When gladiators move into the same space, make an opposed die roll to see who has an advantage in the fight. (An idea I took from Two Hour Wargames; I also use it in my dogfight rules).
3. Fight - Make an opposed die roll to see who wins the exchange.
4. Damage - roll to see if the loser (a) gets wounded and (b) gets knocked back.

And away we go. Blue advances quickly, but Red gets the upper hand. His attack does 2 wounds (not shown).

Red presses forward while Blue retreats. Red attacks and kills Blue (I assume 3 wounds = kill)

Well, that was a tad quick and unsatisfying.

Attempt 2

I made a few modifications to the rules.

• Maneuver - The winner gets to attack. If you double the opponent, you get to attack with an advantage.
• Fight - the winner of the maneuver rolls to hit. This change will likely make fights longer. In the original rules, someone got hit each turn. Now, it is possible that no one gets hit.

Let's try it out.

Red charges, and gains the advantage. His attack misses.

There are a few turns where the gladiators circle around the arena but fail to wound each other. A successful hit does not necessarily result in a wound. Weak hits could just rattle the opponent.

Red finally scores some damage, and it is a serious wound! The hit also knocks Blue back.

Red rushes in for the kill, but Blue counters and wounds Red!

Some more circling, before Red scores the death blow!

Looking at the time stamps, the first bout took 4 minutes and the second took 23 minutes. However, that 23 minutes is padded because I had to take a break to feed the cats! Perhaps 10 minutes for the second?

Anyway, I feel that these rules have promise. Now, I'll look to add armor, shield, different weapons, etc.

Napoleonic Knockout # 1

Season 1 - Attack on Austria

War breaks out in Europe. In this first season, the Turks launch an attack on the Austrian Empire.

The Turks approach the Austrian defenses.

Note - the unit with the clear disk is artillery. I don't have artillery units printed up so I combined a slapdash gun with a light infantry counter. You can't really see the gun in this picture due to the glare.

The Austrians take a beating in the center while the Turkish cavalry overrun its Austrian counterpart (right).

Note - you can see the gun better. I used some narrow brown bases to mark casualties but I'm not keen on the look.

But the Austrians retaliate and destroy the Ottoman cavalry. The Austrian left-flank infantry gets into the battle, but gets hammered.

Still, they manage to drive off the enemy cavalry.

Austrian infantry and Grenzers wipe out the Turkish janissaries. 

The Turks have reached their breakpoint. They fail their morale test so their army retires from the field!

In Vienna, the church bells ring in celebration!

With this battle, the campaign map does not change. The Turkish aggression drops by 1 while the Austrians increase by 1.

Season 2 - Austrian Counterattack

As the Turkish army retreats in disorder, the Austrians pursue. The Turks make a stand at a small village, where they position their artillery and their militia.

Austrian attacks suffer casualties. The Turkish artillery is especially effective.

I kept rolling 6's for the guns.

Turkish cavalry overruns its Austrian counterpart.

The Austrians mount an effective attack on the village, throwing back the guns. But the Turkish militia surprises everyone with a successful counterattack,

Repulsed, the Austrian army retreats.

Once again, the map remains unchanged. Austrian aggression drops to 0 while the Ottomans rise back to 0.

Stay tuned for season 3!

Quickie Napoleonic Knockout

Now that I have a bunch of counter armies, I want to get them all into action. I've been pondering the problem and came up with a solution - a quick-play knockout campaign.

I got the idea for a knockout campaign from Kaptain Kobold.

The Map

I created a campaign map with 6 powers - Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, and Turkey.

The map itself came from https://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/1800/index.html. I just added circles representing the nations and pathways between them.

The Armies

Rather than generic armies, I decided to use army lists specific for each nation. I decided that each army would consist of 5 units, which I determined semi-randomly. 

Creating the Army Lists

Here is how I created the armies.

• I assigned 2 units of muskets to each army.
• I consulted the army lists from Chris Engle's Fusilier (now combined with Ritter) and subtracted 4 muskets from each list. This leaves 6 possible units.
• I created a random table using the 6 units.
• I rolled a D6 three times to randomly select 3 more units for each army.

For example, the Napoleonic French list is 1 skirmisher, 6 muskets, 1 artillery, 1 cavalry, and 1 knight (e.g. cuirassiers). This results in a random table of 1= skirmisher, 2-3 = musket, 4 = artillery, 5 = cavalry, and 6 = knight. If I rolled a 1, 3, and 6 I'd add 1 skirmisher, 1 musket, and 1 knight unit to the base 2 musket units.

I re-rolled if I got extreme results. For example, I initially rolled 3 cavalry for the Prussians. It just did not seem right so I rolled again and got the result shown below.

Army Compositions

Here are the armies. I will keep the same compositions for each battle.

• British - 3 infantry (i.e. musket), 1 cavalry, 1 light infantry (i.e. skirmishers)
• French - 3 infantry, 1 light infantry, 1 artillery
• Prussians - 4 infantry, 1 cavalry
• Russians - 3 infantry, 1 cavalry, 1 artillery
• Austrians - 3 infantry, 1 cavalry, 1 light infantry
• Turks - 2 infantry, 2 cavalry, 1 artillery

Army Stats

In addition, Ritter provides additional stats per army - Move, Killing Attacks, and Break Point. I used these to create additional nuances for each army.

• Move became a modifier to the activation role. The French (unsurprisingly) had a better than average Move so I gave them a +1 modifier. The Turks were below average so they get a -1.
• Similarly, the French had better than average Killing Attacks and Turks below average. To reflect these, I bumped a unit of French infantry to elite status and lowered a Turkish infantry unit to militia status.
• I used the Break Points as is. The French and British have a Break Point of 3 units while the remaining armies have a BP of 2.

So now the campaign is ready. Stay tuned for the first battle!

Armies and Stuff

Completed Armies

When I first started painting 2mm miniatures back in the day, my goal was to have a variety of different colors that could stand in various armies. I never achieved that goal.

Now with counters and smaller armies for quick play MicroBattle, I have accomplished that long-sought goal.

Here I have 6 more-or-less completed armies - red, navy blue, blue, white, brown, and green. I have 2 more printed - gray and purple. And I created one more, light blue, but haven't printed it yet.

These armies allow me to portray a vast array of foes. Just taking Napoleonics, for example, I can field British, Prussians, French, Austrians, or Russians.

The One Game of Christmas

I managed to play one game with my brothers over the holidays. We played Castle Panic. It was the first time for my brothers.

Things did not start well. We lost four walls to the first wave of attackers. Then towers started to fall. But we managed to rebound.

Here is the end of the game. We just survived.

Battle for Bavaria

I decided to do a little experiment - a full-blown scenario using the latest version of my MicroBattle rules. But when I rolled to determine the army composition, I ended up with less than 6 units. Oh well, I played the scenario as generated.

Background

After defeating Mack at Doberschwitz, Napoleon pushes deeper into Bavaria. Mack sets up a defensive line between the village of Kalthausen and a hill. Napoleon sends a corps under Murat to break the defensive line.

Note - in this game, I assume that each unit is a division.

Setup

An Austrian corps (bottom) led by Feldmarschall-Leutnant Franz Xaver von Auffenberg holds the defensive line. His force consists of 3 infantry divisions and 2 artillery batteries.

Murat leads 3 line infantry divisions and a light division.

The Battle

Murat decides to focus on the enemy holding the hill. The Light division starts skirmishing with the artillery on the hill, causing severe casualties.

The lights destroy the artillery and begin pecking away at the Austrian 1st division (right).

After bloody fighting, the Austrians hold the hill. The French meet with more success in the center.

The French launch another assault and clear the hill. The Austrians rout the French infantry in the center.

Murat converges his remaining forces on Auffenberg's infantry. In a make-or-break assault, the French rout the Austrians.

Murat has succeeded in breaking the line.

GAME NOTES

I wanted to see how fast I could play a full-scale scenario with my quick play rules. Technically, this is not a good test as both armies ended up understrength (less than 6 units). The game was quick, only 15 minutes. I'll have to test with 6-unit armies.

Back to Axeholm

A Ser Killian Adventure

Spoiler Alert - The following adventure is based on the D&D adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak. You may not want to read this if you plan to play that adventure.

The Expedition Convenes

After the party's defeat at Axeholm, Ser Killian calls for reinforcements. Killian hired a pair of fighters at Leilon. He also wrote to the church in Neverwinter, asking for help. The church sends a cleric and 3 templars, holy warriors who guard the temple and its priests.

Traveling to Axeholm

The expedition's trip in uneventful. At the threshold, Brother Reginald, the cleric from Neverwinter, blesses the party's weapons. Their steel can now cut into the ethereal essence of the banshee.

Exploring the Lower Level

The expedition arrives in Axeholm without incident. They find that the front portal remained open, so they can enter with ease.

Fortunately, the lower level is clear. Apparently, Killian's party did a good job in their earlier foray. The expedition enters the shrine, which Killian did not explore previously. It seems that holy power prevented the shrine from corruption. Indeed, when they approached the altar, they felt a blessing descend on them.

Game note: I rolled a boon as a random encounter. Since they were in a shrine, I assumed they received a blessing. The blessing should have given the party a bonus in combat, except I forgot to apply it.

The Upper Level

Like the lower level, the party finds that the upper is clear. That is until they reach the gallery.

Suddenly, the banshee materializes and emits a mourning wail.

 Upon hearing her, Haiden, Alyn, and two of the templars drop as if dead.

Brother Reginald and Brother Martin raise their holy symbols to turn the hideous abomination. Reginald's power is strong enough to cause the banshee to flee shrieking.

"We must destroy her!" Killian reminds the party. With that, they pursue.

The Banshee's Lair

Our heroes chase the banshee back to the bastion. There, at the spot where her mortal body died, she makes her stand.

She lashes out at the remaining templar, Tomaz. She hits, and nearly kills him.

Thus begins the battle. The fighters are largely ineffectual, although Nashad manages to dodge an attack.

Killian and the clerics have more success. Although they take some wounds, they slowly drain the banshee of her unholy power.

Finally, Brother Martin winds up with his two-handed hammer and smacks the creature. She turns on him and begins clawing at him. He steps back, swings, and connects. His blessed hammer strikes, parting the banshee's substance as if she were mere wisps of vapor. With a screech of pain, the banshee dissipates to nothingness.

Aftermath

Brother Reginald performs a rite of exorcism at the site of the banshee's death. This ensures that she can never return. With that, Axeholm is clear.

The clerics render aid to the party members stricken by the banshee's wail. Haiden and a templar manage to return to consciousness, but Alyn and the other templar are too far gone. The party buries their bodies just outside Axeholm. Here, they will be memorialized as brave warriors who gave their lives to clean the stronghold from evil.

With that, Brother Reginald and his templars depart for Neverwinter. Killian's party returns to Phandalin to prepare for their next adventure!

What does the future hold for Killian and his crew? Find out next time!

What's in Store for 2024?

 Time to check the crystal ball once again.

• The Slows - I suspect that 2024 will be another slow year for gaming. I don't have any period projects on the horizon and don't know what to expect. I'll probably muddle around some more.
• Summer Song - My LARP group proposed doing game days at the FLGS during the miserable Florida summers. We met a couple of times for some board games. This year, we may try some Song of Blades & Heroes.
• Print Progress - I hope to get a printer this year so I can print out more counters.
• LARP! - LARP has been my primary preoccupation in 2023. I expect that to continue in 2024 as I attend Mythic Adventures and work to expand Way of the Sword Combat Sports.