I ain’t dead… Monday, Feb 13 2012

…to quote Granny Weatherwax.

Between writing my ‘book’ (currently at 80,000+ words) and planning the Kriegspeil for this coming Saturday, I’ve been a bit busy, computer-wise.

The Kriegspiel is getting to be a bit big:  not only am I lead Umpire (PANIC), but it looks like 10+ attendees.  It’s different in concept to other K-S I’ve played/helped umpire: it’s all about the planning.  I joked that I’m looking forward to the 19th, as I get my inbox back!

Sunday I will (hopefully) publish an AAR, plus the rules I wrote, along with the counters etc.

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‘Market Garden’ scenario for Troops Weapons and Tactics. Sunday, Dec 4 2011

Originally entered in the Too Fat Lardie scenario writing competition (didn’t win!)

Based on an incident from the siege in Arnhem, and an attempt to write a multi player scenario for TW&T – not a game that normally lends its self to more than one player a side.

Bloody Berets

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Wargame figure calculator Wednesday, Sep 21 2011

A Excel spreadsheet to help you order figures when the figures come in multiple (eg 30 x 10mm figures in a bag, box of 10 Space Marines).  Break each unit down into its composition ‘types’ – adjust the ‘Ordered’ column until the ‘Total Units’ amount reads the same, then it calculates the cost.

Figurecalc

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Napoleonic Casualty Calculator Thursday, Sep 1 2011

Following a discussion of 2 line vs 3 line on TMP, I wrote a spreadsheet to calculate the difference.  You can set the number of men in each battalion, including the split between the front 2 firing ranks of a French battalion, and those in reserve who fill gaps, as well as the assumed accuracy that will cause a wound severe enough to put a man out of battle.

It is fairly crude on maths, as it makes a number of assumptions:

1. Kill rate as a % stays constant.
2. Those filling gaps do so before the next volley
3. A straight 1 on 1 firefight
4. Wounds are cause simultaneously – ie it calculates hits before subtracting wounds.  If you want one side to fire first, reduce the strength of the other to start.

The way it calculates the remaining men in the 3 rank bn is by applying all casualties to the 3rd rank (non firers).  When this reaches zero it subtract the overkill from the firing ranks (well it adds the negative number).

Casualty calculator

Excel 97 version

Excel 97 version

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War of Spanish Succession – Open Thread. Monday, Aug 15 2011

A poster going by the name of ‘Little Keithy’ expressed surprise at hitting the thread on the riots, when he came here looking for stuff about the War of Spanish Succession.  He was obviously not expecting the somewhat eclectic nature of my blog (read ‘any old rubbish that comes to mind’, refered to by my wife as spending half the night on the internet ranting at people).  Unlike many wargamers this isn’t a wargame only thing. (It originally started as I wanted to share some fiction I had written with bloggers from other sites I frequent, for their opinion).

He wrote

Anyway what I was going to ask: what’s the allure of the WSS? I like the SYW as there is a variety of troop types plus nice uniforms to paint (not that I ever get round to painting them).

The WSS appears to the uninitiated limited in troop types (in western europe), tactics and pretty uniforms (nice whigs though). Is it more a test of skill having limited opportunities for a coup de grace or clever manoeuvre?

Well, to tell the truth, I chose the period based on hats… (more after the break)

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Wargamer’s Rhapsody Monday, Jul 18 2011

With apologies to Freddie Mercury…

Is this Renaissance?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a leadslide,
My escape from reality
Put out my figures, but your army’s bigger, oh crap,
I’m just a poor bloke, I need more miniatures,
Because I’m easy meat, and paint too slow, don’t roll high, always low,
Any way the dice fall doesn’t really matter to me,
to me

Oh-no, I just killed a man,
Charged him on too far ahead, rolled my dice, now he’s dead
Dammit, the game had just begun,
But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away
Oh-no, oo-ooh, Didn’t mean to make them die,
I’ve got to play this game again tomorrow,
With no men, with no men, coz nothing now can save me

Too late, my reserves are gone,
I’ve got Artillery on my ranks, and his cavalry on my flanks.
Goodbye, ev’rybody, I’ve got to flee,
Gotta leave you all behind and quit the field
Oh hell, oo-ooh, I don’t want to lose,
I sometimes wish I’d never played these rules at all
Coz nothing now can save me…

I see a little silhouette of a man,
Minus 2, minus 2, on your combat roll
Agincourt and Crecy, very, very messy
(buy more lead) buy more lead (buy more lead) buy more lead, buy more lead At a show, ow, ow, ow.

I’m just a poor Colonel, everybody beats me
I’m just a poor gamer with a lone sentry,
Spare me my figures from your huge army
Hard to paint, easy lose, will you take a draw
Surrender! We will not let you draw
(Let him draw!) Surrender! We will not let you draw
(Let him draw!) Surrender! We will not let you draw
(Let me draw) Will not let you draw
(Let me draw) Will not let you draw (Let me draw) Ah
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
(Oh Phil Barker, Phil Barker) 5th edition lets me win
Pendraken has an army put aside for me, for me, for me…

So you think you can flank me and use that old ruse
So you think you can charge me and leave me to lose
Oh, damn it, no matter how much I plan it,
Just gotta pack up, just gotta pack up my men now
Nothing ever works, Anything I try,
Nothing ever works,
Nothing ever works, for me
(Any way the smoke blows)

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Why I wargame 10mm Saturday, Jul 2 2011

Tonight I played a game of Black Powder for War of Spanish Succession.  I wanted a chance to get all my newly painted figures – 4 regiments of cuirassier and 3 grenadier battalions – on the table.

My total was

• 18 infantry battalions – 36 men in 2 ranks in each
• 8 twelve man cavalry regiments
• 3 cannon
• 5 generals with AdC’s etc
• Commander in Chief

My opponent fielded 2/3 to 3/4 of this. We fitted this on a 6 foot by 4 foot (approx 1m80 x 1m20) table.  My army cost approx £110 (at a guess, it was bought in bits) from Pendraken (my figure caster of choice).

My opponents said that it looked impressive from where he sat.  Indeed it did – far more from his side.

I took some photos – unfortunately I had to use my phone, as I forgot my camera.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lasthussar/5891926313/in/set-72157626970021933/

As we are using 10mm we have used cm instead of inches in the rules, or as close as is practical, so an infantry battalion is 6 20mm bases, rather than 45mm bases.  This means I could get over 700 figures on the total to give a real mass effect.  To play the same game with 28mm it would have had to have a table 12 feet or more wide.

Additionally 28mm figures are 10 times more expensive as they use so much metal – a battalion costs me about £4, that could easily be £40 or more for 28s- even the plastic ones would cost £15+ for 36 figures.  10′s are easy to paint – I’ve just painted 3 battalions -108 figures- in 48 hours, and that includes doing housework, moving my stepson and daughter in law stuff to their new house and generally not painting.  In addition I can fit all of the figures in a 4 tray ‘very useful box’ for nice and easy storage, and it can be easily lifted

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“Hell of a way to spend Valentine’s day!” – A ‘Platoon Forward’ battle report. Monday, May 23 2011

“Seeing the Elephant”, Italy 1944

Our (Graham and I) latest campaign is Italy World War 2 using the “Too Fat Lardies” ‘Troops Weapons and Tactics’, with their new “Platoon Forward” Supplement (Suitable for all low level rules, but written with TW&T in mind).

We will be following 2 Platoon, B Company, 1 Battalion, Berks, Bucks and Oxon Infantry Regiment, who, arriving in Italy January 44, have been placed with 11 Infantry Brigade. The account of their first action is recounted below.

Note – I have put it in a PDF – editing into WordPress with that many pictures is a bit time consuming! (and the PDF is smaller than 1 photo)

01 – Hell of a way to spend Valentines day

Feel free to leave a comment

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French in the War of Spanish Succession – painting guide Saturday, May 21 2011

French painting guideI put together this basic painting guide for a friend. As we do 10mm only the major bits are identified – no lace etc.

The flags should print roughly the correct size for 10mm, I believe they are from the rather fine “Warflag” site.

French_Paint_Guide

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Random Platoon Generator for Troops, Weapons and Tactics Sunday, May 1 2011

This spreadsheet will generate a random (British) platoon for Troops, Weapons and Tactics/Platoon Forward. Of course it can be used for any other platoon level wargame (NUTS etc) though you will have course have to tweak the stats. For reference TI is Tactical initiative, and runs from 1 (plodder) to 4 (heroic). The Big Man Bonus is the extra added when a leader is directing fire (Typically 3d6-3 for rifles up to 4d6+4 for MG42, the results table maxing at 36). Making the Big Man drop down YES shows the values for that man (TW&T is not normally interested in non leaders). I have defaulted the Lance Corporals, who lead the Bren gun group to BM, as they may well be called on to replace a killed section leader during a battle.

I suggest that you put ‘Workbook Calculation’ (found under Options/Formulas) to Manual, otherwise everything changes each time you change a cell. F9 is the manual update. Use Copy then “Paste Special –>; Values” to put the results you want to keep onto a fresh spreadsheet (this pastes results, rather then the formulae, so won’t keep getting updated).

Note – this is a Excel 2007 spreadsheet, so has the extension .xlsx (see below for a possible earlier version)

Random lists

This is the version saved as compatable with Excel 1997-2003. I can not guarantee which bits (if any) will work. If anybody wants to do a rewrite I’d be happy to work with them on it.

Random lists excel 97

Rights/IP stuff. I’m providing this free for personal non-commercial use, the basic work remains mine. I haven’t put anything malicious into it, but I can provide no warrenty etc etc yadda yadda yadda. Feel free to edit the names/platoon layout for other nations – I’ll happily upload it here or provide a link to where ever you host it: My Gmail address is (unsurprisingly) Last.Hussar@…

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Black Powder – Broken Brigades Saturday, Mar 5 2011

The Broken Brigade rule in ‘Black Powder’ is considered overly harsh by many players.  These are the amended rules we play.

1) A brigade is broken when OVER half the units in it are shaken or destroyed.  i.e.  in a six unit brigade 4 units shaken/destroyed are required to break the brigade – not 3 as per the rules.

2) Units in a broken brigade can be rallied if the ‘break’ status is due to Shaken units, and disordered units may reform.  For the above  brigade with 6 units

- if 4 are destroyed, the Brigade is permanantly Broken

- If 3 are destroyed, and one Shaken, the Shaken unit may be rallied.  Once it is no longer Shaken, the brigade is no longer Broken.  Remember ‘Rally’ is the last order a commander may give. 

- if 2 are destroyed and 3 Shaken, then 2 must be rallied to 2 hits or less to ‘unbreak’ the brigade.

While a brigade is broken it must still retire on initiative so units are more than 12 away from the enemy.  As movement on initiative counts as an order, a further Rally order can not be given that turn.  This encourages the opponent to keep up pressure on Broken Brigades to stop them reforming, rather ignore broken brigades that are almost useless.

We feel this method is a fairer reflection.  It also means that cavalry, who are easy to shake due to their hand to hand role, act like historical accounts – they charge, become blown and spend some time reforming before rejoining the fight.

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“Black Powder” wargame rules – Moving in towns/villages. Monday, Feb 14 2011

Playing Black Powder the other night I left a town in the centre of our lines with no one in it: My brain said obsticle, though we had not designated it as such.  This was almost our undoing.  However built up areas – ven if just a collection of wattle and daub houses do obstruct an army.  What do people think of these compromise rules.  They are designed so you don’t have to represent individual houses and roads.

Represent the town with a template.  It can have buildings on but these are for show – move them around to allow the troops to move!  If a specific piece of open ground is desired  this can be marked – town rules do not apply for units on it.

Units can only enter a town/village in ‘Assault column’ (even if in a period where not normally used).  Rules for assault columns are used as normal.

No change to command rules except blunders happen on a 11 as well (in a village or town its easier to get disorientated, as you can’t see the rest of the battle field, so not appreicate that the road curves, or you take a wrong turning).

A unit can take up residence in buildings – place in a ‘square’ style formation to show this, the unit uses the rules in the book for buildings (not squares).

Maximum fire range in a town is 6″.

Units outside of buildings (ie in Column) do not get the benefit of cover if fired at by other units in the town.

A Line Infantry may deploy into line at the edge of a town.  It does NOT get cover unless the settlement has be designated as providing it on that edge before the game.  A unit may enter buildings at the edge of town, so it can fire out. Infantry in skirmish order DOES count cover.

Shooting into towns from outside has a maximum line of site of 3″ from the edge.  In this case columns DO get cover.

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War of Spanish Succession for ‘Black Powder’ Tuesday, Feb 1 2011

“… & Blenheim Palace” (Do you see what I did there?)

These are the playtested (and amended, and playtested again, and amended again) rules we use for War of Spanish Succession with Warlord’s “Black Powder” wargame rules.  These are independent of Warlord and the original writers.

Blenheim Palace v2.2  (PDF)

I know some will bring up specific situations where some of these will not be applicable, or counter to what happened at certain battles.  I think these sort of instances are better handled in scenario specific rules.

Please remember the aim of these are to add the flavour of the period, not an indepth study of early 18th century warfare, so while I’m happy to receive constructive comments, Black Powder remains at its heart a game for Gentlemen played with Toy Soldiers!  I wished to stop two identical armies being fielded, especially with the cavalry rules.  Here I wanted there to be an actual difference beween armies using the two doctrines.  More notes on page 8.

You actually only need pages 3-7.  The other pages are bells and whistles to make sure it prints correctly for double sided, as well as following the style of the ‘eye candy’ original rules.  Also 8 pages means it can be placed on A3 and make a booklet.

Click the Black Powder tag to the left for all BP related posts by me - there are a number, including a battle report, and my modification to the Broken Brigade rules. The tag at the top does all the BP entries across WordPress, so you’ll also find other people’s take on the rules (some contributed on my earlier WSS rules post – Thank you)

Play Nicely, and may all your dice be lucky.

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Figure Storage Thursday, Jan 6 2011

This is the plan for storing my War of Spanish Succession figures.  It is a 2 tray “Very Useful Box”. ’P.Inf’ are Prussians, ‘A.Inf’ are Austrian, ’1st’ will be 1st fire markers (to show units not yet fired this battle, so getting a bonus on 1st shot).  Completed so far are 10 infanty units, with wound markers, 2 artillery, 2 cavalry, 3 generals and the C in C.

The tray compartments are 6cm square, 5 x 3 to the tray.  Infantry bases are 2cm square, the Cavalry bases are actually 25mm, not 30 as shown, but even I am not nerdy enough to set up Exel (the original program) up to do this.

Box layout plan

I have a 2cm space – what to do with it?

UPDATE

My regular opponent said that his research shows a rough ration of 5:3 of Foot:Horse.  This means I need more Cavalry.  The next box size up is 4 trays, so I’ll have space left over.  So I worked out a force that brings this up to 4 trays worth (MGS means Minor German States)

Box layout plan 4 tray

Damn you Graham.

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Adding flavour to ‘Black Powder’ orders. Tuesday, Dec 21 2010

In ‘Black Powder’ you give the order for the unit before rolling the command dice.  The dice may give you 1, 2 or 3 moves.  If you don’t have enough moves to complete your order you must try to complete it, even if you don’t like where it leaves the unit. Giving an order is easy if there is a terrain feature – “The brigade will advance onto the hill and take a defensive position.”  but not so easy to define if moving across open ground, and you don’t want them to go all the way across.

My regular opponent and I have taken to referring to ‘paces’ where 1 unit of movement (UM for ease hereafter) is 10 paces (We use centimeters instead of inches, but the principle is the same).  Thus an order of “The battalion will move 150 paces forward” is a move of 15.

Given I reckon 1 UM is approx 10 yards this works well; strictly a pace is two and a half feet, so  1 UM is 12 paces, but it’s close enough.  A scale of 1 UM to 10 yards makes for easy conversion, but there is no reason why you couldn’t call it 8 yards.

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