Weekend in Gaming

For me it was very unusual as my weekend actually was full of gaming or gaming related projects. Lately it seems I spend more time considering gaming than actual gaming.

Friday afternoon I received a response from a rules author for which I had a question concerning their French and Indian Wars rules. In an attempt to protect the innocent, I’ll skip the rules and authors names… “Your answer has absolutely frelling nothing to do with the question I asked. As a matter of fact my question was on the interaction of movement ranges and firing their answer was on unit morale and survivability.” So in other words neither the authors or the play test groups never asked why a infantry unit can basically charge half-way across the table and not take a single round of fire while closing. I’ll just say I didn’t know whether to be amazed or just accept it as fact that the Authors let reality come in the way of a bad rule set.

Friday evening it was all about research and banging my head against the wall. Sometimes the obvious questions are the one that go unanswered in peoples “painting guides”. Where the uniforms of British Drummers of the Line Battalions in the French and Indian Wars reversed. The obvious answer is yes, but I don’t have a single source that actually sells that. And since the only source I have access to that says directly is Kronoskaf, and it indicates that some are and some aren’t. In the end I finally agreed with Jim, even it is wrong it just makes more sense to reverse the colors.

Saturday afternoon was all about the Carnage and Glory Napoleonic Game at the Levee Café. Okay I need to preface this, I have suffered through six games of C and G before Saturday game and had some idea on how the rules worked, but this the first time I played v2 so I was slightly surprised. Now honestly I am not going to buy the rules or run games using C and G 2, but I will not not play. So I can’t say I dislike the game but I am not enamored with them either. Too many things happen that make you go, um okay, I guess if the rules allow it.
I was on the Prussian side and a piece of bad intelligence before we set a single figure on the table probably did more to stop us from crushing the French than anything else. We were told the French were approximately 32” (one mile in game terms) away from our starting line, when in reality the French set up within 12”. Do you take three turns to reorganize yourself for an attack you were planning for turn three/four or do you push forward. Half the Army charged the other half attempted to reorganize neither worked.
I had to leave early to make it home and let my new puppy out before she had a bad accident in her kennel, So I missed the Prussian attack completely stalling.

Sunday was all about painting figures. 25mm British Line for the French and Indian War. I am tentatively planning on playing BaR for the period, singly mounting figures against my better judgment cause there isn’t anything else out there right now I want to play. I bought the figures years ago for another project, now I am trying to make something out of it cause I own the figures.
Well anyways I completed the first division of the 48th Infantry Regiment, just 45 figures to go and that regiment will be all painted. On the plus side I have completed all the difficult figures to paint and just have musketeers left to paint, so they will take like six to nine hours to finish the other 45 figures. However I wonder where I put all those painted 25mm Hessen figures for the AWI. I probably have a 25mm Prussian Army already painted.

Republic to Empire

So the other day I was surprised to find I had a package in the mail, wasn't expecting anything. So I was little shocked to find a copy of "Republic to Empire", a new Napoleonic set of rules from the "League of Augsburg." I had preordered the rules a long while back, so long ago I had almost forgotten that I had done so.

After reading the rules I can say the book is nice, about 150 pages with roughly 100 high quality photo images. The problem is the game contained in the book is completely unplayable as written.

Where to start?

I'll start with the pictures, yes there are 100 beautiful photos of figures, a grand total of three are useful (in any shape or form) to explaining the rules, and that might be a slight exaggeration, the photo on page 58 shows front, flank and rear, the other two photos almost represent what is being talked about, and the other 97 have virtually nothing to do with the game itself. To me that turns 60 pages of rules in 150 and when and if you have to use the rules during a game it's going to take a while to find what you are looking for.

The next problem is the verboseness of the rules. Yes I am a very verbose and longwinded guy, however some the rules explanations are over the top by MY standards. So you 60 pages of rules which is really maybe only 30 pages at most. What am I talking about, while not only does the author give the rule, but an explanation of the rule and in some cases the history behind the rule and why he didn't implement 8 different variations of the rules.

Because of the Pictures, Explanations, and other inserted crap into the rules I have to say the rules are poorly organized. There should be a section on the rules, a photo section, and finally a "this is why I did this" explanation kind of section instead of the cluster that currently exists.

The narrated battle report was interesting, but I hate to say this, makes the game sound even more complicated than it is. Well actually a lot of the explanations make the rules sound a lot more difficult than they really are, maybe that's because I am a simple man.

As an individual who has/is suffering through writing a set of rules I have learned a lot about the process. One of the things I learned is how rules morphing and changes work their way into the rules; kind of looking at C and knowing that it was B at one time and A beforehand. I see a lot of that in these rules, you see the finished or published concept and know what was the working model as the rules were developed. For instance it is easy to see the rules were developed for individual mounted figures but were modified along the way to handle multiple basing and finally that multiple basing becomes well the norm. Now I understand why multiple basing is the norm, the problem is the rules don't always follow along.

The basing in the game, for infantry anyways, is a 15mm square per figure, how you mount is your personal choice and most of the pictures show 20 to 25mm frontages for the figures. Well anyways If we consider a paper strength French Battalion of 720 men, that's a decent sized unit of 36 figures. So mounting figures two deep that 18 figures or 360mm wide frontage, which makes a French Battalion in line 11 inches, but wait a second the pictures show stand deep line cutting frontages down to 6 inches and …. Well I could go on, but it highlights a pet peeve of mine, if your unit basing doesn't match your unit's spacing than it's broken. The spacing described in the game and throughout the rules doesn't match the spacing; to me it looks like the individual mounted figures might make sense (three deep lines and two deep lines) but the multiple figures per base kills it.

Because of the basing to me it looks like a concept that probably works at 1:30 is being stretched to 1:20 or requires singly mounted figures. Now as everyone knows I am not a big fan of 1:20, it's an in between ratio that really has no reason to exist now-a-days in games. You want the big battalions go 1:10, you wants something a little smaller go 1:30. Don't get me started. At 1:20 you are almost to a part where you need to show divisions (two company units) rather than battalions but not quite.

The next downer for me was the concept of what a game looks like. The Author (in several locations on the Web) indicates that a typical French Division could be set up on a six foot wide table top. Okay assuming 2 brigades of four battalions in a historical formation (arrow head or trapezoidal) and the ground scale in the rules where 2.25 mm = 100 yards (don't get me started on mixing metric and imperial measurements) you would need roughly 100 to 125 inches, yet the rules author has you doing it in 72 inches. I honestly understand when the rules have to fudge and percentage point or ten because of how the rules work, but honest 40%, that's just too much. So historical layout of troops linearly is way out of line. Okay next they indicate that a typical French Division should have 350 figures… What a second – assuming you give yourself 1 foot of depth, that means 60% of you deployment space will be covered in figures and you have two feet between the forces. What a second Musket Range is 27 inches so you start in Musket range. I could go on and on, it just doesn't work out.

I found the fact the Command and Control rules a hodgepodge of ideas stuck together extremely annoying. I believe someone referred to them as each part designed by committee, I am reminded of the movie Apollo 13 and the CO2 cartridge. I realize they are independent of one another at the different level but there is no meshing of the rules concepts, you are just left wondering why they are so different.

I could go into shooting, 11 dice divided by 2 since you moved, halved because in effective range… Since may people currently believe fire fights the norm and cold steel the well un ordinary, I just don't see how fire can be effective enough in this game. You do any moving and firing at any range at all and block of figures are rolling nothing for dice.

Napoleon's Battles in December

It’s the day after Christmas; you know you are going to be bored of your relatives and looking for a lot of GAMING EXCITEMENT.

Well look no further….

Saturday December 26th,
10 AM until we can’t take it no more.
The Source Comics and Games

Napoleon’s Battles in 15mm
Wagram (Light!)

In a desperate attempt to avenge his first defeat Napoleon has called up every military asset he could muster and is now ready to throw everything, including the KITCHEN SINK, a few BATHTUBS and if he had them a couple of Hot Water-Heaters at the defending dogs. Those mangy mutts won't know what hit them.

The Archduke Charles knowing that Napoleon and the entirety of the Military Might of France is crossing the river is counting on the Imperial Army, two dozen drunken collegee students on summer break from University of Vienna who think they are going to Key West, a couple of pickle farmers from down the street, and 12 boys from Siiberwald to hold them smelly froggies off. We'll see who lets the dogs out! Where oh Where has that little Archduke John gone?

I must be honest, it won't be completely Wagram, as we would need nearly 250 square feet of table space and we only have 100 square feet, but gosh darn it we will make do. Besides I have a freshily painted Bavarian Corp that needs to see the tabletop for the FIRST TIME, not to mention like 30 Regiments of Austrians that have never been on the tabletop.

Horse Musket and Gun

Over the last couple of days I spent many hours pondering, considering, postulating, pontificating, and slamming my head against the wall over Horse Musket and Gun. There is no question that the rules are very close to the finished product, yet a couple of small incidental little "bugs" or quirks haunt the game.

In reviewing the previous versions of the rules, I am on the ninth rewrite and I have yet to really finish on version, I am really at a loss as a consider how close I am, yet how far away I feel. I kind of like running a marathon (Well I guess it is like running a marathon since I have only run a couple of half marathons) 25 miles down, 1 mile to go, but you may as well have another 25 miles for as little as in your tank.

Let me recap my problems:

Artillery the queen of the Battle Field is over powering the game. It is too effective. I know that for at least one of my loyal readers that probably doesn't seem possible. Yet Artillery alone stopped two brigades of Prussians and held a Division of Austrians at bay in the last game. In the game before that a couple of batteries at long range messed up the French defense so bad we might as well not have played. So the question is why is Artillery so effective? Good Dice, Cautious players, is Bombardment to effective, are players miss reading the charts, are the ranges to short?

I at first played off the Austrian Artillery as just good dice and might have played off the French Artillery as good dice, but it wasn't. Well at first for the French it was, but simply rolling 10, 11, and 12s was enough to hold off a Austrian Division

The Austrian players in the last game were a little worried about a few fatigue, yet the Prussian players attempted to push forward, and in the other game it was offensive Artillery fire.

In the last game only the Russians put a heavy battery in bombardment, the French never considered it.

I went through the charts two dozen times, it seemed like the French were reading the charts properly. However the scale of the game just put them in to long range early on where distance modifiers didn't seem to matter. Okay I cover the last two options in one paragraph.

I suppose there is another option, there could be too much artillery, however we are representing who batteries that actually existed in the period, I mean in 1812 we'd also have French Regimental Guns for a number of Corps, that just gets to be too much, but that isn't the period we are currently playing.

To me it seems like it is a combination of all factors are conspiring to make artillery to effective, so the question is what to do.

I have over the past several months making it more difficult to move Artillery, requiring Divisional, Corps and Army Assets to have an ADC attached to limber and reduced the prolong of all artillery. But that makes Artillery more difficult to move not less effective when it fires.

So what else can I do?

In Bombardment we are change x2 fatigue to +1 fatigue. This still makes Bombardment 33% more effective and since fire is completed before movement can be an effective measure on either the defense or offense.

I am looking at a way to reduce or should I say remove the fresh marker on artillery. I had considering giving artillery a different kind of bonus, but my goal has always been a simple game without 97 different bonuses or modifiers, but I seem to be getting that way anyways. So rather I am proposing removing the Artillery's Fresh Marker at the initiative stage (which I am renaming Administrative) on any turn the Artillery fired in the previous turn. I realize that in some game play the players may take advantage of that, but trying to monitor three phases seems too difficult. So after some thought my suggestion is to a check in the Administrative Step in turn after the artillery battery has fired the turn before. On a pass no changes, On the first pass the artillery loses its fresh marker, on the second fail it takes a -2 low on ammunition (which can be removed via a pass in the next administrative step.)

I am going to adjust the ranges of the artillery, shorting the ranges for Effective and Long Range, while increasing Extended and Extreme Range to make up the difference. I have pulled up the work of Chandler amongst others to evaluate what distances are, rate of fire, rounds in the caissons, and so and so forth.

A 12 Lbs can fire canister 500 yards. However its overall effectiveness decreases by 50% for every 100 yards (see Chandler). So if Canister is 100 percent effective at 0 yards it is 50% effective at 100 yards, it is 25% effective at 200 yards, 12.5% effective at 300 yards, 6.25% effective at 400 yards and 3.125% at 500 yards. So how would you map this out on the tabletop? In the 1830's the British Army did an extensive study on Napoleonic Artillery, I never understand why people always study the last war, rather than preparing for the next war, however I am going to refer to this test.

At 0 to 100 yards a single blast from an artillery battery would effectively kill or injury 64 men, at 200 yards this would decrease to 32 men, and at 300 yards 16 men, and so on and so forth. The rate of fire is approximately 1 round every minute, and Artillery only had a high point of slightly more than 95% effective at 0 yards (miss fires, bad powder, shells exploding, or worse guns exploding) With all this I created a complicated spread sheet modeling fire, and I got to say I was surprised at how well it lines up with the British Documents. In all I shortened the ranges of the artillery, Light Artillery ranges are changed to 0-4, 4-8, 8-20, 20-40, Medium Artillery 0-5, 5-10, 10-25,25-50, Heavy Artillery 0-6, 6-12, 12-30, 30-60 for Effective, Long, Extended, and Extreme.

Another change is to increase the bonus to +4 for effective range, this make the math against the chart work out to where I would like it to be. This is one of those changes simply to make all the math work out.

The way this works out, at Effective Range with a Fresh Heavy Battery should be doing 2 fatigue per round (10% no fatigue, 35% 1 Fatigue, 35% 2 Fatigue, 16% 3 Fatigue and 4% for 4 fatigue).

Another minor change, counter battery fire was so common in the last couple of games (with so much artillery on the table and as effective as it is) I have added the requirement that only Artillery on Bombardment orders can fire counter battery fire. Again I refer to both the writings of Chandler (and Richard Hook who I am sure is using Chandler as his source) that it took an hour of extensive fire to silence an enemy Artillery Battery, too few targets in too large of space. Followed on with "brigade batteries" rarely (if ever) fired upon enemy artillery because they were more concerned about supporting the infantry in case of a surprise attack or in case of a charge. To me this is a case that it happened so rarely that you probably don't need to model brigade batteries and should be concerned with divisional, corps and army assets. And we already have a solution for that, bombardment.

The Math on this puts most attempts in the -3 to -5 modifier range (55 to 45% effective doing 1 fatigue or no fatigue on a roll of 11). This also adds in the fact the counter battery is usually two batteries against one hits the fact that 3 fire phases should produce 2.7 to 3.4 fatigue, which I think is right in line with where it needs to be.

I am also reevaluating my Scenario, instead of allowing the defender 18 to 24 inches to deploy I am reducing the deployment zone to 6 to 12 inches. This puts more of the board in play and hopefully allows the attacker to better prepare an attack while under minimal fire.

So to recap

1. I have increased the modifier for fire in the Effective (Shortest Range) by 1 to +4
   
2. I have decrease the ranges for Effective and Long Range to be in line with British Study in 1835
   
3. I have now requiring Counter Battery Fire to be in Bombardment Only
   
4. I am changing my scenarios to give less depth to the defender.
   

Let me know what you think.

Upcoming Game at the Levee Café

Tentatively I am planning on a late April (17^th or 24^th) game at the Levee Café. The game again will be 25mm Napoleonic's using Horse Musket and Gun; and again because of figure availability we will be revisiting the Fall Campaign in Germany 1813, as we refight The Battle of Dresden.

Joel Gregory, Jim Fitzgerald and I have already agreed to work to providing as many figures as we can for the game. While I don't expect to put out 12,000 figures I am hoping that a slight bathtubbing will get us to around 5,000 or so figures. Additionally the tabletop will be right around 200 square feet.

At this point it looks very do able.

Game at the Levee Café was another great success

I am happy, as well as greatly relieved, to say Saturday's game of Horse Musket and Gun (infantry action of the Battle of Liebertwolkwitz) was in my opinion a stellar success.

I need to provide a great number of Thank You's for the success.

At the Levee Café I got to start with my brother Brian Johnson, the Executive Chef and General Manager, who opened the Café early, made a special breakfast and laid out our lunch, as usual my brother thanks. For the other staff whose names I don't remember we do appreciate you going the extra mile and poor Emma who had to deal with 20 Geeks all day and did so with a smile.

For the figures I have to thank Joel Gregory, who provided the lion share of the figures including a number of buildings on the table top, Jim Fitzgerald who provided the Russians and a couple of brigades of French, and Keith Dalluhn who provided the Bavarians; Jeff Knudson who provided some of the buildings on the table top.

Everyone who showed up to play, as everyone should know I am so bad with names I am always happy to remember my own name on most days.

We had at the height of the battle I believe we had 20 players pushing slightly more than 3200 figures on 152 square feet of table top. We completed 6 turns (18 phases) in just over 8 hours. I am happy with 6 turns, even though I wanted 8 turns. Considering most players were new to the system six turns isn't bad.

I feel I also learned a lot about running such a large (25mm) game and the space requirements. We could of used another 24 Square Feet and that might have change the flow of the game some.

I'll post more on the game later.

November 21st - Horse Musket and Gun at the Levee Cafe

On Saturday November 21st, 2009 at the Levee Café in Hastings, MN advance elements of the Army of Bohemia will clash with the elements of the Grande Armee in a recreation of the infantry action around Liebertwolkwitz, (October 14, 1813). The battle features 3 French Infantry Corps plus some cavalry vs. 4 Allied Infantry Corps plus some cavalry which occurs after the more famous Cavalry Battle.

Everyone is welcome to attend and play, there is no cost to play and all figures will be provided. As usual we will be paying for the room via services in kind, IE buying drinks and eating meals at the Levee Café. We have made special arrangements to have breakfast served on Saturday at the Levee Café as the Resteraunt no longer serves breakfast on Saturday; however I will need a head count before hand for breakfast.

The battle will be refought using Horse Musket and Gun in 25mm. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Horse-MusketandGun/
In the next day or so I will have a short version of the rules posted and will continue to be turning my notes into full blown rules.

Figures will be provided by Joel Gregory, Jim Fitzgerald, and myself with the possibility of a few others bringing their own commands.

On Friday evening we will setting up the terrain and preparing as many figures as we have available for the game. Jim and I are planning on eating supper around 6PM with the rest of the festivities occurring after dinner.

Saturday morning we will get special access to the Levee Café at 9AM, with breakfast around 10AM. We will be pulling and preparing as many figures as they arrive.

There will be a rules overview at 9:30 AM and the Game will start at 10:30. My goal is to get in two turns (six phases) before Lunch.
For Lunch I have ordered a buffet style meal which will be available for a donation or you can order from the Menu.

The Levee Café, 100 Sibley Street, Hastings, MN 55033

If you have any questions please contact me via email the_goldy_gopher(at)yahoo.com.

Hope to see you all there.
Jeff