Drum Roll.........Napoleonics!

 This was a momentous event for me personally. This was the first Napoleonic gaming, just over two years after the digger started the project off by digging out the foundations for the Situation Room.
The project is far from complete, I doubt it will ever be!
I'll be doing at least three posts on the games that were played last week. We used lots of figures with new terrain and new rules which I hope to eventually publish. Without further delay, I've chosen to start with the fictional battle of Wachau, Leipzig suburb areas in 1813. The armies were French and Austrian.
As an aside, one area that was short of the finished article, was allied cavalry. There was none! So some plucky French types had to pretend and what a pretence they displayed! Picture 1 shows the French left flank with the major suburb area, made up of 4 villages, in the centre background.

The next picture shows the same portion of the front line from the French right flank.

The battlefield became affectionately named the Maginot line as it was difficult to breach. But that was in the game design. I had planned starting with games using Standard Grand Manner Rules, but after a day game to get back into things, everyone wanted to try the new rules. We did not regret doing so!
The next set of pictures are purely to show off some of the figures and the size of the units and overall scale.

This shows a 2 Regiment Brigade of Light cavalry in the foreground. In the background is a Division of Austrian infantry supported to their front by 2 Brigades of Light cavalry of 4 regiments in total.

This is a closer shot of the Austrian infantry Division above. It consists of 8 Battalions, a gun battery and some skirmishers. It amounts to over 1,000 figs alone. We had 16 such sized formations on table for this game.

This shows an Austrian attack on the French right flank. There is a French light infantry battalion deployed in a wood and the main defence is centre on the village.

An Austrian battalion in close up. All told, 150 figures. The allies were fielding 70 such battalions.

This is a closer up shot of the French defence on their right. The defence here eventually developed into a counter-attack!

Just because I like it, this is Wachau, the centre of the French defence line. Deployed in it are the French Guard, you are looking at about 10 battalions.

This shows a more general action on the French left flank where enemy divisions have come to grips in the open terrain. In the new rules, melees can be deadly affairs. The ultimate result in this area was a French victory but you can already see the Austrians bringing up cavalry to stop any further French advance.

A more general view of the action across the front. Everyone thinks the scale looks great with the terrain being used. They really like the "mass" feel of all the figures. The rules also worked well on their first outing. Most mechanics worked, tweaking as we say should see them develop nicely.

And lastly, the guys playing. We're short Bryan, he could only make a day. But we had a great time. This post is a bit of a ramble, all to do with the excitement of getting something posted. As a result, I've jumped all over the place!!! I have many more pictures and another game and so I will take more deliberate time on the next posts. I'll also go through a credit list of who supplied what. So, I'll let you slaver over this for a day or so before I post again!

Game 10 : Nowosselowka Hill 260.8 take 2

This was a re-run of game 9. The reason for this was to see how the game played with different players and different Russian choices. To re-cap, this is part of Grossdeutschland (GD) attacking a hill defended by a Russian infantry division. The Russians get options on reinforcers and each option also determines the class and morale of troops. The options are;
A tank Corps. This option makes all Russians regulars.
Two tank Corps. This option makes the infantry regulars and the armour green.
No tank corps, instead two reconnaissance battalions. This option makes all Russians guards.

Game 9 saw option 2 chosen by the Russians. Although, at times, it looked like the GD would get swamped by Russian armour, the morale was always brittle. The Russians lost about half the armour in game 9.
Game 10 saw the bold decision of having no armour and guards! One immediate consequence was that in the recce part of the game/setup, the Germans found out a lot less of the Russian dispositions. This was an important factor in how the game played.
To see the terrain, refresh yourselves with game 9. The first piccy shows the intrepid players, there would indeed be a casualty of war (well, alcohol really).

Here you can see all of us pontificating on various things. I'm winning the argument, I've got my wicky wicky stick! We are now in the realm of where we don't really need tape measures. I think they look horrible on the table and I've eventually gotten round to making sticks with lots of pretty colours and range bands.
The Russian tactic was to defend the forward village (near where Pete is standing) which is directly forward to the German lines from the centre of the defended ridge line. Then we held the ridge in regimental strength and the shoulders in equal regimental strength.
The German tactic was to refuse their left, screen their centre and put all their effort into a right hook, to take the hill from our left flank and roll up the defensive line.

This shot shows the forward village. This was defended with an infantry battalion and a regimental commissar to stiffen morale. This battle would rage the whole weekend with at least a German motorised battalion and armour support striving to drive out the Russian defenders. More of this later.

This shows the the German right flank from the German side. In shot is about 75% of the German infantry attempting to drive in the Russian left flank. This fight would be protracted with mounting losses for both sides.

 

 

This is the same attack shown from the Russian side. This was the main assault. Our right flank would remain quiet and the fight for the central forward village would last all weekend.

 

 

 

Another shot of that contested village. The Germans drove most of the Russians out, but the village was reinforced with a motorcycle company and is still clinging on to a small part with the aid of a Russian regimental commissar (who would end up surviving).

 

This shot shows more of the hill and the Germans at their high point. They are driving in the Russian flank and gaining a hold on the hill. Its at this point we came to a halt. Another weekend, another interesting result. In fact the result was similar to game 9. The Germans get a firm hold on part of the hill. Historically, the Germans took the hill and then drove off to another emergency. The Russians then walked back onto the hill!
The game was good for the rules and scenario generation. It showed that Russian infantry, of decent morale, with no armour, can hold up/out against the best the Germans have. I can see more ideas coming on now!

 

And the group piccy, missing the alcoholic reprobate! The funny part was that he was supposed to get back to referee a football game. That might have been interesting on match of the day!

Next game up will hopefully be Napoleonic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lots of work still being done, so watch out for game 11!!!!!!!!!!

Game 9 : Nowosselowka Hill 260.8

This game was based on an actual encounter on the Southern Kursk salient. The Germans are trying to take a strategic hill and the town to its rear which is the local communication centre. The idea to do this came from a Command Post Quarterly article written many years ago. For us intrepid gamers. it was the first time of using Tanks with good killing power and was also a game where the troop density was the lowest we had tried.
The latter was intentional, we were playing with 3 guys on each side (1 Russian was there for a day) and this was a normal weekend, start Friday afternoon and finish Sunday afternoon. One of the objectives was to see if the force/player ratio was balanced and would we get a good result.
So, the Russians are defending a strategic hill with a small town to their rear. The town has level 1 buildings only. The Hill has two contours and so you can see quite a distance from it. All the Russians are dug in.
The Russian forces are based on an Infantry Division with options for what type/number of reinforcements are available. The German forces are based on units from Gross Deutschland, a Panzer Btn, Panzerjaeger Btn, StuG Btn, Infantry Regiment, Reconnaissance Btn & Motorcycle Btn. Both sides have artillery support. Both sides also had air support where the time arrival was not certain and the aircraft type actually arriving was variable.
Changes to the scenario rules (after the broken ones from last game) were tweaks to who and how artillery was controlled and a tweak to visibility rules from buildings and hills. These were small changes but the conclusion after the game was that they worked very well and addressed the prior issues we had found.
On to the battle. The first two piccies show the battlefield.

You are looking East, the Germans attacking from South to North. The town is Nowosselowka

Still looking East, you can see the strategic objective of Hill 260.8. In game terms, the hill is about 6 feet long. The terrain has far fewer buildings than previous encounters and very few woods in the "combat area". There are lots of differing types of fields.

The major town is quite small, all level 1 buildings offering some cover but anything inordinate.
The next piccy shows German forces advancing on the right flank of the hill. It shows a mixed force of Germans and the Russians dug in, marked by their "hidden markers". This idea cam from Grant & Craig in Cornwall. The markers are numbered and there is a matching sheet off table where the troops actually depicted by the numbered markers are placed. The simplicity of this allows for dummy positions as well as real positions. Its amazing how long "nothing" can hold up an advance. The game was also different in that the attacker has to probe in a relatively careful way and balance this against the time taken to actually make headway.

The Germans adopted a fairly sensible approach of attacking, via probes, in three directions. Not surprisingly, these were to the left, right and centre. The picture shows roughly a third of the German forces. As it will turn out, the Russians will have the best part of two regiments defending the main hill. The attack you see made the most headway. Russian reserves were committed against the German right and so this sector was hard going for the Germans (nearly a disaster until the Luftwaffe arrived in the right place at the right time with the right aircraft!!!).
The next piccy shows the above attack as it developed. In essence, some markers were dummies and some were infantry that the Germans forced out of their positions. The piccy shows one of the many hit and run counter attacks that the Russians attempted. The German Marders were rather exposed!

I won't go through everything as this game will be played again. In that report I will go through all the options both sides had, the artillery rules and also how air support worked. Above, the Russians had surprised the Germans who were changing their axis of advance as they were wary of the speed of the Russian armour. But the Russians caught the Germans out.

 

But then Oops!!!!! Without going into too much detail, the Russian shooting was pretty dire. Managed to miss nearly all the juicy targets and then, thwap!!! A series of events that I will expand upon next time, but the whole Russian Brigade was wiped out!!! This somewhat unexpected result immediately exposed the whole of the hill to attack by enfilade, a whole exposed flank waiting to be rolled up.

 

This shows the position when we had to wrap things up. The Russians would lose the hill because of the earlier hiccup! The Germans would not, however, get to take the town. Fairly historical result really, the Germans took the hill and then had to race off somewhere else. Everyone thought the game worked very well, the troop density worked, the "thinking" that was required from both sides was "appreciated" and of course we had a few beers and good food.
I've eluded "loosely" to things like artillery & air support, options etc and will explain more next time as I don't want to influence the next game. All of use who played this game will be Russian next game (they don't know yet) as this will work quite well.

Lastly, but not leas the merry gamers. Special mention goes to Steve as he managed not to smash his head on the steel roof supports!!!! Maybe its because Gordon brought him a helmet!! and Steve thought he'd take the better option? One guy not in the piccy is Darren. He played against me on Saturday driving tanks all around me as well as bringing a Napoleonic village sample. Speaking of which, I will post some piccies of progress in this area. Until next post then..........

 

Game 8 : Russian Winter Offensive : Take 2

One of the problems with developing rules is the false sense of security you gain over time when everything is going well. By that I mean balanced games and outcomes that everyone "thinks" is reasonable given the troops, objectives etc.
Well, this game didn't break the rules but nevertheless delivered a cautionary tale in scenario design planning.
This game was a repeat of the previous game with different players. This is always good because different players will nearly always adopt different planes. The irony in this game was that the plans for both sides were as before, except the Germans selected a Panzer Division as their starting forces. Cutting to the chase, a variety of circumstance lead to time being used up on the first day with only 3 moves which meant we changed the schedule of arrivals to, well, none as it turned out. The consequence was that the game revolved around a Russian infantry assault on the main town with no armour support and the Germans freely calling in artillery. The result was as clinical as it was predictable.
After suitable gnashing of teeth and copious amounts of alcohol it was collectively decided that some unbalance had occurred. We played on with some "amendments" to see what could be done, if indeed anything was required.
I'll leave the conclusion to the end and now we can have some piccies of the action.

This is the central section again, I redid the terrain from memory and some piccies from the last game.

The nasty Germans are on the left, Adam seems very happy as if he has already won before we start. I've no idea was I was the only person sitting down!

The German defenders deep in thought. You can see the markers for hidden deployment on the buildings. The system works quite well, we tried a slight variation for this game but I will revert to the original system for our next game as I think it was "cleaner" when deciding what was or wasn't seen.

This shows Russian combined arms trying to advance against German armour. The Russian tanks, KV1s, have far superior armour to the Germans but are rather clumsy with respect to speed and shooting (in this scenario). When they could get to grips, German armour would retire in a controlled fashion. The game was interesting because it showed how armour only could hold up infantry advances for a long time, trading time for ground in a controlled fashion and constantly harassing the infantry with artillery.

This is a piccy of the main Russian assault on the main town. It looks pretty here, but didn't after  a turn of deadly fire!

This is action in my sector where I manged to fight into a town with the help of tank support.
Well, what conclusions did I eventually come too? I had a good old think and what become increasingly clear was that the rules were fine, it was how I had specified special rules for the scenario. The special rules were to do with visibility and how artillery, for both sides, was controlled. I concluded that some of my rules on artillery control (who and how easy) was over generous and the same went for the extended visibility rules for built up areas. This aspect had been commented on before in another totally different game and I was reminded of how I thought it was a glitch in the game, not the scenario per se.
Next time will see some changes to the scenario rules for artillery control and visibility and I'll see how that goes.
Off to put the kettle on now.



 

Napoleonic Interlude

I thought I would provide an update on the Napoleonic part of this project. The Napoleonics has always been intended to be the larger part of the project but is a far more complex undertaking, involving all new design commissions for villages, redoubts and the like, not to mention the number of figures involved. Working out how to get the figures painted in quantity and quality is also a problem (never mind the financing!).

About a week ago, the tally of troops ready for deployment stood at the following numbers.
French line & allies : 39 battalions, 25 batteries & 15 Regts cavalry.
To refresh memories on the scale of things, each French Btn is a nominal 108 figures in 6 bases and each base is a company. Cavalry Regts range from 72 to 178 strong and gun batteries are done gun for gun.
The rules will still be "In the Grand Manner", being able to directly use the current edition and also a new addition that I am currently writing specifically for 10mm scale and major changes to many of the rule mechanics.

At the end of last year, I realised that the acquisition of painted figures needed to be accelerated. I decided to use Neil Kenneally in Bangladesh in addition to Alan Tuckey who has been painting since the start of the project. Initially, I sent Neil the bulk of the Russian infantry that would be needed, about 7,000 figures. Painting time?, about 7 weeks!!!!!!!!

Within 10 weeks of sending the box of figures out, the boxes returned, 3 of them. Now I'll digress slightly. I hadn't worked out how long it would take to unpack the boxes! I've no complaints either!!!!!
Each box contained slightly more than 2,300 figures. Every figure (yes, every one!) was individually wrapped. Groups of figures were then wrapped in newspaper, all taped up for safety.
The first piccy shows troops from the first box being sorted by the labelling on the newspaper that they are wrapped in.

Each regiment of infantry was in 3 or 4 wrapped newspaper packets. I should have mentioned that these are early Russians, so each regiment has specific facing and lapel colours (as opposed to later troops where the colour is common).
So this was stage 1, sort the newspaper packets by Regiment.
The next stage was to unwrap the individual newspaper packets, check the figures, count off that all figures were present and then put them into a plastic Chinese take-away cartons, by regiment, prior to basing.
Now here I advocate an alternate sexist vision of having a nice wife knitting at home in front of the fire. Far better to be unwrapping figures!

I kid you not, even with 2 of us, it took 4 days to unwrap and sort the figures. And I won't even mention a full dust bin with of rice krispies! (can anyone guess what the cryptic comment eludes to?).
Just to show that I was also working hard at the same time, I'm to be seen undercoating the French artillery pieces, all 180 guns.

Well, a month later, all the figures have been based, textured, dry brushed and flagged. The figures are exquisite for 10mm scale. Details is good and I'm impressed!
All the Russians are from Red-Line miniatures (main considerations are cost and they are new designs to my spec). The flags are all GMB, again done initially for my needs in 10mm. Anyone can now get Russian flags from GMB for 10mm scale. In fact, as they are early flags, I believe the Russian range has increased significantly, even for 28mm.

The figures you see are 12 Btns of Russian Guard in the foreground and 16 Btns of Russian Grenadiers in the background. Base width is 3/4cm per figure. So you are looking at troops with the same footprint as 28mm troops using Grand Manner rules when you compare the width of battalions. Depths here are shallower but each unit has the correct 3 rank formation. What I can see but I can't fully show or describe until the first game is setup, is that the increase in available depth on my tables will have a profound affect on how games will play using the current rules. I won't explain here, but I can get "into it" in a separate discussion.
The next piccy shows 40 Btns of Line Infantry.

Lastly, a pull back shot showing the lot.

The Infantry component is not finished as the Jaegers are yet to come. Hot off the design moulds, they should be with me a week from today. Also, being early Jaegers, the basic unifrom is a "flat lime green colour"
What's next? Well, at Easter, I shipped a further 18,000 figures out to Neil. Currently, 5,500 are in boxes on their way back. The rest will get back by the end of the month. These include French and Austrians. Also by the end of this month, another box with about 8,000 figures will go out to Neil.
End of year hopefully sees the best part of 30,000+ figs painted and ready to go.
More snippets! Russian light cavalry will be in 10 squadrons (2 Btns), heavies in 5 squadrons. Austrian lights will have 8 squadrons. Squadron sizes for some nationality/types will also differ to those currently used.
I hope this has whetted the appetite for what I hope the future brings. The Napoleonics hasn't been forgotten, it just takes a lot of resources and persistence to get it to where I envisage it.

Game 7 : Russian Winter Offensive

This was the seventh game at the Situation room and was effectively the first anniversary of gaming. Its amazing to look at the amount of kit and terrain that is here now, compared to a year ago when the first game was played!
This game was trying to be different again. The scenario was a Russian Winter Offensive. For this, they had 2 Tank Divisions, 3 Infantry Divisions, 2 Independent Tank Brigades, 2 Reconnaissance Btns and 2 Artillery Divisions. Pre-planned barrage artillery was also available using a points system with different costs for different calibres (the higher the calibre, the higher the cost so less overall). Barrage fire was also a fixed 12" by 12" size and counted as a smoke screen for the turn when landed. These mechanics were taken from Cornish Combat Command rules. Its a quick and easy way to do pre-planned fire.
The Germans had a single Motorised Division in defence. The scenario was to have the Russians launch an offensive over an impassable river, seize the 3 main towns and stop any German counter-attack. To make this possible, the Russians could deploy 6 bridges overnight prior to the assault without detection. In addition, there were mechanics for repairing blown bridges (3 of them) over the river.
The Germans needed to hold out and then counter-attack with reinforcements. As another new approach for us, we adopted the hidden deployment and reconnaissance system from Cornish Combat Command. In essence, numbered markers are placed on table. Off-table, there is a duplicate sheet with the marker numbers and hidden troops are deployed here. Dummy counters are also allowed, we used up to 33% and then a reconnaissance "battle" is played prior to the game start and Russian deployment, to see what defensive positions or actual troops are discovered.
Need less to say and with over 20 years experience of organising very large games, this game didn't go as I envisaged! More on that after the brief account.

Pictures 1 & 2 show the battlefield with the Russian start lines to the left of the picture where you can just make out the river. Piccy 3 shows a ground level shot taken from behind the German lines, I just thought it looked quite effective. There were 3 towns, roughly equally spaced. The central town had heavier cover than the other two.
It was apparent fairly quickly that this game would play enormously different. Using hidden deployment meant that the Russian advance was more cautious that in previous games where all the kit was always deployed. In addition, German artillery on the defensive side was to play quite a dominant part, even though it was limited in numbers.The next piccy shows the central town, this would eventually see the Russians take the front part but exhaust 2 Divsions of infantry in doing so.

You can see the numbered markers used for hidden deployment. The problem for an attacker is not knowing if anything is there but more how much?
The Russians attacked along the front. On their right, the main push was by the Independent tank brigades of KV1s and T34s. In the whole main part of the game, the Germans only had 1 Tank Btn of 37mm armed PzIIIs and a company of PzIVs. This battalion was held in reserve in the centre.

The Germans tried to ambush this attack by using an armoured car squadron hidden behind cover. It never really worked as the Russians moved along the road and blocked the exit of the cover with a KV1. It nearly worked! However, what was clear that tanks, any tanks, unsupported bu infantry, cannot take built up areas. The tanks were eventually ambushed by an Pak 35 firing stick bombs and slowly, but surely, degrade by anti-tank rifle fire (critical hits) and persistent artillery. In fact, as a cameo action from the game, it was a great example a battalion of infantry in good cover fending off unsupported armour.
On the opposite flank it was the infantry attacking without a lot of armour support. The result was the same.

The Russian infantry would eventually get armoured support in the manner of KV2s and T28s and make some progress.

However, the Russian commander made the point that he was using a regiment of infantry to clear each building. Towns are nearly impossible nuts to crack. This was also a game in which the quality of the Russians was the highest we had ever used. There were Russian units that were superior to the Germans, not only kit but morale, firing ability and damage absorption ability. The one that came to mind was the Russian T34 Independent tank Brigade. You literally had to kill it, bit by bit. The days of Russians crumbling easily on morale was not too prevalent, although infantry battalions caught in the open by German artillery were usually badly mauled or annihilated.

This show the Russian armour on the right flank redeploying to the centre after concluding that towns and tanks don't really mix. In the foreground you can see burning Russian tanks and German armoured cars. The town was to remain in German hands.
In the centre the battle started off one sided as the Germans got to ambush the Russians. Again, a difference for this game is a Russian smoke screen, used to cover their advance.

The Russian attack in the centre petered out as it was clear that the un-committed German Motorised troops were able to pick the point to reinforce. We had played this game for about 3 days in all and were all quite tired (some small amounts of liquor may have had an influence on this). My idea of using German reinforcements wasn't really needed, the Germans had held the main line.
My surprise was that this was made possible by the hidden deployment and its influence on the game and how it would play had taken me by surprise. Also, the manoeuvrability of the Russians over the river with 6 bridges and the potential for 3 more, had surprised me at how slow it was. This is all good as it shows me as the game designer what factors heavily influence playability. I hope this then results in better, more challenging games. But as long as we all continue to have a good time!!

Lastly, a piccy of the players. I played German with Peter, Gordon, Graham and Steve played the Russians. Oh, and more champagne!!!!!!!!
Keep an eye on this blog because I'll shortly post a Napoleonics update!!!!!!!

Game 6 : In front of Moscow

This was game 6 at the Situation room and is really a variation on a theme. I'm currently restricted, until reinforcements arrive, to playing eastern front. One advantage is that you can try various situations, troop densities and scenarios to see how well the rules cope and especially in seeing if the games have the "right" feel.
We played 3 games, all of which were linked. Each side had a top level OB from which they had to pick formations for each of 3 games. Depending on the outcome of each, either side might accrue an advantage for the next game. Each formation had to be used at least once, but could be used more than once especially in the Russian OB.

The setup was controlled by an abstract recce system, the side "winning"the recce deciding on which table edge to start from.This picture shows the Germans in game 1 taking the town by turn 2, forcing the Russians to try and counter-attack. The Russians were at their worst morale/training stats for this game and so were repulsed by the Germans in all areas and pushed back. Troop density was 2 Russian Divs against 1 German Div and the immediate result was to see a lot of space for manoeuvre. Using this space allowed for both sides to probe for holes but you did have to be careful not to over manoeuvre at the expense of the central objective which was the small town and the main single highway.

I liked this piccy as it shows Adam after we had tried to cut him down to size. But it also shows Germans in the foreground in trucks. It shows the truck bases are the size of the whole company which better reflects the length of a road column without having to have individual trucks for each base. The trucks have bases depending on the nation/organisation and type.

This shows a Russian infantry formation trying to contest the town after losing the recce and having to march on. They were on a loser from the start, accurate feel for the setting of the scenario.
The second battle followed the same format and pitched similar forces against each other. The result of the second game was a complete destruction of the Russian forces.
The conclusion of these games told me that Early German Panzer troops against superior number early Russians and in the relative open, would lead to German success on a regular basis, a result that seems in keeping with what actually happened.
The last game would have a large town, with strong defensive buildings and a river running through the middle of it. The objective would be the town, the bridges over the river and the main highway. Neither side would know if the river was fordable. We constructed a table of various types of ford and when troops first reached a ford they rolled a die to see what type of ford, if any, existed. The result was kept secret from the side who had not yet reached the river.

The battle for this town showed how towns negate the manoeuvring abilities of troops and also how attritional battles are. It was difficult for well trained troops to bring this training to the fore because close fighting can be quick and it is certainly deadly. It was also nice to see infantry with anti-rifles driving off tanks from both sides within the confines of the town.

This piccy shows the 2 bridges over the river and the town. Flank attacks were to no avail as the river turned out to be unfordable to vehicles in these areas. However, in the centre, the river was fordable to tanks and infantry. the piccy actually shows German tanks with snorkels crossing, they were deployed in the centre before we knew the state of any fords.
The guys who played these games are in the next piccies. Adam had to go early and Graham arrived the same evening, so we had even 2 a side for the whole week. It sounds like a long time, but when you have good games with relaxed like minded people (and in some instance drink a lot!), then it doesn't seem that long.

My last mention for this post concerns the rules. The rules are in beta version and printed. Guys who come here get a copy as it is still a "live" document where we amend/change rules as our experiences suggest. This process has been going on for over a year and is nearly finished. The rules proper should be published later this year. Anyone who would like more details or who have more detailed questions are welcome to contact me here or directly via e-mail. gerryjelliott@aol.com

And just a note to also say that the Napoleonics is slowly building up. I hope for at least a game this year. Until next time!