An Update

Doldrums

I've hit a spell of gaming doldrums, primarily because I was preparing for a LARP. I usually have a pipeline of posts that I can schedule. However, the pipeline has run dry due to my LARP preparations.

Anyway, last weekend, my friend and I attended Mythic Adventures LARP in the Orlando area. Here's a picture of us. I'm on the right in the gold armor.

I enjoyed it and plan to go back.

The Naval Project

Is still stalled due to the lack of ships. I picked up a bunch of wood ovals to make some quick models, and I haven't gone any further.

The Next RPG Session

I sort of have a goal of completing one game of Napoleonic Knockout and one RPG session per month. I finished this month's Knockout. Next up is an RPG session. I'm not sure when I'll get around to it.

Napoleonic Knockout # 2

While I try to resolve my ship shortage, I decided to continue with my Napoleonic Knockout campaign.

In seasons 1 and 2, we saw Austria and the Ottoman Empire battle to a stalemate.

Season 3 - Napoleon Marches

After consolidating his authority in France, the Emperor Napoleon launches an invasion of Prussia.

The armies array for battle. The French are on top. The gold marker indicates an elite unit - the Imperial Guard in this case.

The armies shift to bypass the woods. French artillery and light infantry hit Prussian infantry and cavalry.

The fight shifts to the Prussian left.

Note: I did not have enough Prussian infantry so I borrowed some purple Turks. However, I treated this unit as standard foot.

La garde recule!

But the French light routs the cavalry and the French center crushes the Prussians.

Prussian morale fails!

Napoleon marches into Berlin and accepts the surrender of the Prussian king. Prussia is now a French satellite.

Season 4 - The Russian Bear

The next season sees the Russians and British mobilize their forces. The Russians, however, move first.

The Russians and Brits had the highest aggression rolls but Russia wins the tiebreaker.

The Russians decide to invade Austria.

The Russian cavalry attacks, causing some casualties to the Austrian infantry in the center. But then the cavalry gets repulsed. Meanwhile, Russian artillery pounds the Austrian cavalry.

The Russian center advances, overrunning some infantry. But the Russians are soon surrounded.

And destroyed. But the Russian artillery saves the day. It blasts the Austrian cavalry.

Austrian morale collapses.

Another conquest! This time Vienna capitulates to St. Petersburg.

Status after Season 4

France and Russian have expanded their territories. As a result, the map looks like this.

Who's next to fall? Find out next time!

GAME NOTES

In both games, long range artillery destroyed a unit. I wonder if artillery is too powerful.

I have multiple campaigns of various kinds going on simultaneously. My goal is to complete one session per campaign per month. Therefore, expect to see the next Napoleonic knockout in March.

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!