I experimented with Fast Play MicroBattle last weekend.
Set Up
I decided to pull out my white army for this battle. They represent the Imperialists. So I guess blue represents the Turks.
I rolled randomly to determine the order of battle: 3-4 infantry, 1-2 cavalry, and 0-1 artillery.
The Imperialist rolled poorly and ended up with an army of 3 infantry and 1 cavalry.
The Turks have 4 infantry and 2 cavalry.
Because they are outnumbered, I set up the Imperialists as the defenders.
The Turks advance their wings and assault the Imperialists. In both attacks, the Turks destroy their adversaries.
Already down to half strength, the Imperial army loses heart and flees.
Game over.
Analysis
That battle may seem like a failure for FPMB, but I'm satisfied. At least it shows that I achieved my objective. The system surely is fast play.
That being said, there are some lessons to learn.
- Understrength, 1-stand divisions are fragile. Don't count on them lasting very long.
- I can probably handle slightly bigger armies. In a defense scenario like this, the defenders should start with 6 units and the attackers could have 8 or 9. Guess I need to make more counters.
- Defenders could really use some artillery.
Speaking of artillery, you may notice a lack of artillery in my games so far. Skirmishers, too. This is because I envision the game as grand tactical in scale. I assume that supporting artillery and skirmishers are part of the infantry and cavalry units. An artillery counter would represent a grand battery. Possible but not necessary for an army to have.
What about skirmisher counters? I don't envision having entire divisions of skirmishers so I may use my skirmisher bases as irregular or poor infantry.
The Onyx Rule
With the battle over so quickly, I felt I had time for another. I decided to set up a sequel.
But then my cat Onyx discovered the game and started playing with the dice. This invoked the Onyx rule - "When the cat sits on the board, the game is over."
Nevertheless, I plan to experiment some more. Stay tuned!
Every game played should be a lesson learned - even if it’s what doesn’t work/what should be avoided. Hopefully over time you can hone the rules.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the armies, why not either start with a random roll and then select, say, 2-3 extras (or vice versa)? That way you can at least make sure the armies are historically representative of whatever nationalities you are trying to portray or make sure the various units are appropriate. What sense having an army with lots of cavalry or artillery but fighting in terrain that is largely wooded?
Cheers,
Geoff
I agree with Elliesdad: there needs to be a reasonable combination of 'core' troops to which other units can be assigned by die rolls or some other system to create individual armies.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I like to portray skirmishing and artillery bombardments, which could last a significant length of time and also have an effect upon the enemy that can, eventually, be exploited by a full scale attack. I'm all for simple rules and systems, but I don't want the battle itself to be over too quickly.
I usually use the One Hour Wargame random army determination. Sometimes I get lazy and don't pull out the book. Instead, I just create a random determination table off the top of my head. That's what I did here.
ReplyDeleteYou'll see some artillery in the next test. I still lean towards leaving skirmishers out of these rules. If I want skirmishers I can play my full MicroBattle rules.