Drive to the Border

"Well, that was a close run thing." the Marquis des Aix-En-Pains stated to his aide-de-camp as he surveyed the battlefield of Hook's Crossroads."

"Indeed Excellency," the aide averred. "Thought I doubt that the Duke will want to tangle with us again."

"Which is why we must strike!" the Marquis stated emphatically. Pass the word that we shall advance at once!"

The aide hesitated, surprised by the Marquis's precipitancy.

"Well go on." the Marquis prodded him. The aide rushed off. Within the hour, the army of Aix-En-Pains was marching to its border with Bad Schmaltzberg.

It has been a while since I played a scenario in the Emperor's Balls campaign. I played 2 of 3 scenarios about 6 months ago but (as is typical) never finished. This weekend I decided to play a horse and musket scenario (prompted by my completion of new artillery stands). I figured I may as well complete the campaign.
_________________________________________________________________________________

As the Marquis's army (red) approaches the border, they are met by infantry and dragoons. The Marquis's infantry advances, supported by artillery fire.

But they are destroyed by the dragoons. The Marquis launches a cavalry attack to no avail. Reinforcements arrive for the Duke's forces.

Again the cavalry attack but are driven off.

The dragoons and fresh infantry cover the retreat of a spent Ducal batallion.

Another unit of the Marquis's infantry falls.

 The Marquis brings up his guns and unleashes a barrage against the Ducal line. The dragoons fall.

The Marquis's cavalry rashly rush into the gap.

Which gets plugged by a second dragoon unit. The cavalry is shattered.

Having suffered severe losses, the Marquis calls a retreat.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Later that year, the Marquis and Duke met at the Emperor's Yule celebration. The Marquis crowed about his "resounding victory" over the Duke.

"Resounding victory?" the Duke scoffed. "You must have been miles from the battlefield or else you would have seen your troops fleeing across the border!"

"And how did I get to the border anyway? By thrashing your invading army!"

"Thrashing?! Goodness, you must be ill informed . . ."

At this point, the Emperor strolled by. "Please, gentlemen, this is a season of peace and good tidings. Let us put away all rancor."

Chastened, the lords reluctantly agreed. And as the Emperor departed, he added "at least until the next campaign season."

Notes

• Overall this has been a wasted week. I've been off work all week and hoped to get in multiple games, but I had things to do around the house and then succumbed to a bad cold. At least I was able to get in one game.
• And thus ends my first go-round with the War of the Emperor's Balls. It provided a very pleasing campaign. And as I mentioned before, the accompanying Simplicity in Hexes rules set works quite well.
• I was able to get my new guns in action. The red guns performed sterling service; alas the blue guns were stationed in the village and never fired.
• I did a very quick job on them, mounting one gun and one strip of artillerymen. I suppose it would look better if I cut the strips in two and mount half a strip on each side of the gun. I was lazy though and just stuck the whole strip on the base.

• I must say that guns are much nicer than Magister Militum's old artillery.

Battle of Hook's Crossroads

Reveling in his victory at Apostrophe Hill, the Marquis des Aix-En-Pains sat in his pavilion sipping on the finest local vintage. With the drubbing he gave the Duke of Bad Schmaltzberg, he did not expect their war to continue. However, he was surprised when a messenger entered.

"Excellency! Bad Schmaltzberg is advancing!"

"What? Where?!" exclaimed the startled Marquis.

"He is trying to march around our right flank!"

Quickly the Marquis acted. He called his commanders and ordered them to prepare to move out. They would cut off the Duke's march and again punish him for his temerity.
_________________________________________________________________________________

The Duke's forces (bottom) approach the crossroad but the Marquis has blocked the road.

The Marquis sets up a defensive position on the hill (left) while the Duke advances.
There is a cavalry clash on the right; the Marquis's troopers are forced back.

Firefights erupt across the line.

The Duke's infantry takes the worst of it.

One of the Ducal infantry battalions flees. However, the Marquis's horse is overrun (right)

The Ducal cavalry tries to turn the flank while volleys thunder across the valley.

Time and again, the Ducal cavalry charges, only to be driven off.

Another Ducal battalion flees.

And another. As the Duke's assault on the hill grinds to a halt, the Marquis rushes to take the crossroads. The Ducal cavalry retreats. One regiment is felled by musketry.

 The Marquis's men reach the crossroads as the final Ducal cavalry are slaughtered.

The Duke's infantry drives the enemy from the crossroads but cannot seize it themselves.

With more enemy troops closing in, the remaining Ducal battalion decides to retreat from the field. Another victory for the Marquis!

Game Notes

• According to the scenario rules, this is technically a draw because neither side controlled the crossroads at the end. I am calling it a narrow victory for Aix-En-Pains because they have a decided advantage.
• An odd situation cropped up at the end of the game. Per the Simplicity in Hexes rules, victorious attackers do not take vacated ground. This happened in turn 14; the Duke's infantry wiped out the enemy battalion holding the crossroads. The Duke's men could not follow up. In the next turn, the Marquis positioned infantry adjacent to the crossroads. The Duke could not seize the crossroads; his men would advance adjacent to but not facing an enemy unit. It seemed like an illegal move! I may have to look into Kaptain Kobold's suggestions for SiH.

Battle of Apostrophe Hill

After their rather sharp disagreement at the Emperor's Ball, it is no surprise that the Marquis des Aix-En-Pains and the Duke of Bad Schmaltzberg found themselves embroiled in war!

Game Note: This is the first game of my replay of the War of the Emperor's Balls campaign, and the associated Simplicity in Hexes rules which can be found at the Numbers, Wargames and Arsing About blog. Many thanks to Kaptain Kobold of The Stronghold Rebuilt for posting about it; that is how I found the rules/campaign. Now back to the story!

The Duke stole a march on his rival and advances into the Marquis' territory. His vanguard runs into a force defending a hill.

Game Note: The first battle uses scenario 4 from One Hour Wargames, in which the entire Blue army enters on turn 1. For this play-through I added an activation mechanic; roll 2D6 and use the higher roll to indicate the number of units that can act in the turn. The mechanic is borrowed from Squad Hammer.

Accurate fire by the artillery on the hill drives off some cavalry. However, the Duke's full army advances onto the battlefield.

Infantry and cavalry try to assault the artillery on the hill. The cannon fire is just to much to bear.

Reinforcements from the Marquis arrive. The Marquis' horse routs the Ducal cavalry.

Repeated assaults on the hill left the Duke's second cavalry in tatters and an infantry unit in full flight.

The remaining Ducal cavalry also flees as firefights break out across the field.

Another Ducal infantry routs.

The remaining infantry persevere.

Game Note: I also added an army morale mechanic, a la the Portable Wargame. Once an army passed 50% casualties it had to roll morale or would be forced to call off attacks. The Duke's army passed its morale test.

But the volume of fire against them is too great.

And they are cut down.

The Marquis des Aix-En-Pains has inflicted some pain upon his rival. He is confident that the Duke will retreat, and he will be ready to pounce!

Game Notes
When I read Kaptain Kobold's test game of Simplicity in Hexes I was intrigued. I had perused Neil Thomas's Simplicity in Practice rules (the basis for SiH) before but ironically found them unnecessarily convoluted. If they could be simplified, however, they could very well meet my needs. I took a peek (they're free after all) and liked what I saw. I decided to give them a test run.

For my first test, I played them as written, aside from adding activation and army morale mechanics (as described above). Also, obviously, I used a square instead of hex grid.

Overall, they are a well done set of rules. Movement is pretty standard although the movement rate is shorter than my typical rules (1 space for infantry). However, the rate works well on the small grid (I used 8 x 10 but standard SiH uses a 6 x 6 grid). Firing is straightforward - for each unit firing roll a D6 with a target number based on the unit firing. Success = 1 hit. Modifiers are kept to a minimum. So far so good in my eyes.

At first glance, I was a bit concerned about melee (or charge combat as labeled in SiH). It uses an opposed die roll mechanic, with the combat result dependent on the difference between rolls. I'm usually not a fan of having to calculate differences; I prefer to look at the die roll and immediately know if I hit or not. Nevertheless, I decided to give the charge combat rules a try. I must admit that they worked better than I expected. The math was not too onerous (at least I did not have to divide!). Furthermore, I found a few advantages to this system:

• Because of the different mechanic, melee felt different than fire. I think that's appropriate.
• The defender has a chance to damage the attacker. Again, it felt right.
• I forgot to apply the roll of 6 = 2 hits rule in fire combat. As a result, melee tended to be a bit more decisive than fire combat. Ironically, that also seemed appropriate.
• Interestingly, melee is automatic if a unit enters a space adjacent to an enemy. This simple rule solves a problem with which I have struggled lo these many years. Are adjacent enemies engaged in a firefight or crossing bayonets? Well, Jay Ward (author of SiH) has come to my rescue!
• Although it never came up, the retreat rules also simply yet effectively account for troops in defensive positions. If defeated in melee, defenders typically retreat. If it is a minor defeat, however, troops in defensive positions may stay put. A serious defeat will see them bail out regardless of their position. Again, it is simple yet makes sense.

I am a big proponent of miniature rules having to feel right. I must say that SiH gets it right for melee, as well as for the rest. There was not one area of the rules that I had a major disagreement with. There are some areas I still need to explore (I did not use a leader and I'm not sold on the SiH approach yet). At the core, however, I enthusiastically say that these rules work really well! You will definitely see more SiH on my table!

If that were not enough, Mr. Ward also provides a short and simple campaign. It is only 3 games long, which should be perfect for an evening of battle (My first test game lasted 39 minutes). It utilizes the scenarios from One Hour Wargames. I have been a big fan of OHW scenarios for years. They are interesting tactical situations but are short games that require only 6 units per side. They are perfect for this Lazy Gamer!

Overall, I must say kudos to Mr. Ward - Simplicity in Hexes is a real winner!