Over the Hills playtest

I haven't been completely happy with how Black Powder plays out especially in larger battles with the frontlines defaulting to a static grind for turns on end and little national differences in units. With that in mind I've been eyeing new rulesets whenever they have come out. Over the Hills is a new set from Adrian McWalter and Quinton Dalton that seems to have created quite a stir around the blogosphere with plenty of praise from all sides. The fact that it had a larger emphasis on morale and quicker playing style with a mixed activation order instead of the traditional I go, you go style seemed like it could be exactly the thing I was looking for.

With the ruleset arriving in my mail box a few weeks back we scheduled a test game for last weekend. To keep things simple we went for a bit smaller engagement with few different unit types. Teugen-Hausen from the 1809 campaign between Austria and France seemed a suitable setting with roughly a Corps on both sides facing each other and only about an enlarged Division taking part in the fight on both sides. I created an OOB adding a bit of variety on the commanders especially on the Austrian side where they seemed to exhibit surprising amounts of courage leading their troops from the front in successive counter-attacks trying to drive the French back. So bonuses to inspiration values were definitely in place for a few select commanders.

I won't cover the game itself in too much detail, but rather focus on the rules. Suffice to say the battle went rather like the historical battle with units arriving piecemeal on the battlefield and committing themselves when ready. The battle slowly escalated with a division on both sides in combat and the small Austrian hussar regiment proving to be a nuisance to the French threatening their flanks as in the real deal. The battle ground down to a halt with no clear winner and both sides suffering similar casualties. The French hadn't pushed through, but neither had the Austrians been able to push them back. Indecisive, but a small Austrian victory.

The rules themselves proved fast playing and easy to learn. I was the only one who had read the rules beforehand and acted as the Umpire with two clubmates assuming command of the opposing forces. With the mixed activation order things came a little at a time at first and also everyone was constantly occupied with things to do. The turn system also eliminated one of the things that annoys me about Black Powder, which is units moving at breakneck speed getting three turns and then unloading on the enemy at close distance which just seemed silly.

Morale and casualties are put into a single value of Fatigue that varies by unit depending on the morale and training levels. I was at first slightly hesitant with the system which seemed overly simplified, but during the game I grew to like it as it kept the game flowing fast and gave real choices to commanders about whether to burn Fatigue to move faster towards the battle or conserve it to have better staying power. The system does require a bit of book keeping with every single point of fatigue taken will be removed from the units total even if it's later rallied on the gaming table. Track needs to be kept of the overall amount of fatigue hits taken as well as the current fatigue of the unit on the table, which can be different if officers rally the unit. So effectively a regular unit will be destroyed after taking 7 fatigue hits even if it's rallied to remove some of them on the table. It gives a nice effect of officers sorting lines out and inspiring their men forward, but at some point the unit has taken too many casualties and will just retreat from the area despite the efforts of their commanders.

We played with both Brigade and Divisional morale in use requiring the whole formation to start retreating after suffering more than 50% Fatigue hits from it's total. The system really requires efficient uses of reserves as units can rarely stay in the fight for multiple consecutive turns. We did find that having divisions with brigades of different sizes could lead to basically the whole division breaking quite fast after a large brigades morale broke down. We had one occasion where a smaller brigade with nearly no damage taken was only a few fatigue hits from breaking off as well when a large brigade in the same division broke down after leading the attack. This is easily remedied though with a slightly different distribution of units. Another way would be to just track Brigade morale and not Divisional morale on top of that as well.

Another thing that I liked was that fighting was quick and fairly decisive. When one side moves into close combat a maximum of three rounds are immediately fought and if one unit is not victorious then both sides retreat. This really kept things rolling with the frontlines not bogging down and more often than not units quickly retreating from an assault. In Black powder you can easily have fights going on for turn after turn with no clear result in sight. What Over the Hills offers is much closer to first hand accounts I've read in wartime diaries etc. that usually saw a short exchange of fire with one side assaulting with bayonets and the other retreating without any combat having necessarily been fought. Units also tend to take quite a few Fatigue hits in every combat so you rarely see a unit fighting more than two combats before it is fully spent.

National variety comes from national characteristics, use of 'French' or 'Linear' combat systems and differences in unit's Fatigue and Skirmish values. I felt they gave a nice and simple way to differentiate the varying forces fighting around the period. In the end of the book there's a selection of unit characteristics for all the different periods of fighting during the Napoleonic wars, which proved very handy when putting together the scenario.

One thing that I did find a bit lacking was the movement speed of units. With the muskets maximum firing range of 12" being roughly 200 meters in real life terms, infantry normally moves 6" in line formation without gaining fatigue and 12" when taking a fatigue point. Likewise at maximum movement rate in marching column they would move 18" or 24" while taking a Fatigue hits. That yields to infantry moving between 100 and 400 meters in a turn which at times seems a little slow at times. As we are playing with 15mm miniatures we changed inches to centimeters which saw units moving at a snails pace over the battlefield. Of course the scope of the turn in Over the Hills is a much shorter period than in other systems so more turns would be needed overall, but movement still felt a bit sluggish. This is probably more of a matter of taste as we tend to play large battles on bigger tables and being used to the longer movements in Black Powder I think our table was maybe a bit too spread out for these rules.

The biggest issue with the rules is editing. With all rules being set inside explanatory text you really have to read carefully to pick things out. Something to bring out the main points like using bolded text or italics would really have helped. The book does have bit of a garage project vibe as well and does look a bit like it was done on Microsoft Word. However when you get the hang of the rules they are really straight forward and can be taught to others easily just by playing. Professional editing would really have benefited the rules. Still can't complain too much, they weren't too expensive and you can't expect too much from wargames rules with smallish print quantities.

Overall I really liked the rules. They fix everything that I didn't like about Black Powder while still keeping the game simple and actually making it flow even faster the BP. With my interest in warfare being quite heavily on the psychological side of fighting the fact that the rules put more emphasis on the morale side of fighting with the Fatigue score I really liked how things played out. My clubmates were also pretty thrilled with the rules and it would seem we will switch to these for our next Napoleonic campaign starting sometime early next year.

That's quite a wall of text, but I definitely recommend giving these rules a try. They are very fast paced, but still provide a good period feel and are easy to learn. Some book keeping is required but nothing too much for roughly a Corps sized game. It would be interesting to see how it works when you play some larger battle like Waterloo. Keeping track of things could prove harder then.

Book review: The Battle of Maida

Not much going on on the hobby front due to travel, wedding season and other holiday activities keeping me away from home and the painting station. I have however had quite a bit of time to read for a change.

I received a copy of Richard Hopton's Battle of Maida: Fifteen Minutes of Glory from Jonathan Freitag's 500 posts and 5000 comments commemoration draw at his blog Palouse Wargaming Journal. I'd read a bit about the battle already previously, but was keen to know more as it was one of the first instances where the English managed to defeat French troops in the field and also saw action between Swiss and Polish troops against the Brits.

The book devotes the first half to setting the background for the battle explaining the situation in southern Italy and the formation of the Third Coalition. Major commanders are also introduced and their backgrounds are explained. Especially on the British side there were many commanders who would later play important roles in the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns. For example General Kempt (then Colonel) makes an appearance leading the Advance Guard which played an important role in winning the battle. The background section was well structured and gave a nice overview of the lesser known parts of the Third Coalitions actions as normally Austerlitz and the actions around it take the center stage.

Stuart's expedition into mainland Italy is handled in the second half of the book. With the Royal Navy in complete control of the seas Stuart was able to transport his small army of roughly 5000 infantry to Sant'Eufemia to threaten the supply lines of General Reynier who was fighting against a guerilla uprising in Calabria. The book does not paint a very flattering image of General Stuart instead showing him as a man without much of a plan, who abandoned his defensive positions to attack a numerically superior enemy and was saved by the competence of his subordinates and some luck.

The battle commenced when Stuart moved out to attack Reynier at the same time as Reynier had moved out from his positions in the high ground to attack Stuart on the beach. The two armies met on the plains with both of them deploying in line. The Brits held superiority in artillery, while the French were the only side to possess any cavalry. Reynier being dismissive about the British fighting quality after his experiences in Egypt sent his troops forward using his veteran regiments as the spearhead. What follows would go down in history as Kempt's advance guard turned the French veterans with two volleys fired at point blank range and followed by a bayonet charge. On the rest of the battlefield things weren't going as well for the British, but the timely arrival of 20th Foot on the French flank turned their advances there in to a retreat. The lack of cavalry on the British side would hamper their efforts to truly follow up their victory as a proper pursuit was not possible with the French cavalry and Swiss troops performing an effective rearguard action.

The battle was nevertheless a resounding success for the British with only 45 dead and roughly 300 wounded they had managed to cause massive casualties to the French who suffered around 700 dead and between 1000-2000 wounded. In addition to these casualties the French would suffer heavily at the hands of guerillas when retreating towards their main forces to the north. The British casualties were exceptionally low for the time and of those casualties over half would be suffered by the 2nd Brigade consisting of Highlander's who were new recruits and had to face attacks by French cavalry and artillery. Interestingly the Brits suffered more dead in the coming days as after the victory they billeted in a swampy area and many soldiers caught malaria which would end up killing far more men than the actual battle.

The end of the book handles the British advances in southern Italy after the battle, which helped to remove the threat of a French invasion of Sicily for many years. This would prove to be important as Sicily provided the Royal Navy with an important base of operations in the Mediterranean from where to control the seas.

All in all I really enjoyed the read and would recommend it to anyone interested in the Napoleonic era. It comes across as a very thoroughly researched book and highlights an area of operations that is usually shadowed by the larger battles that were going on at the time. For the British it was an important victory that would give them confidence when Napoleon otherwise seemed unstoppable. It is also one of the few Napoleonic battles that is actually honored in England with an area of London being named after it with the only other ones being Trafalgar and Waterloo.

And once again thanks to Jonathan for the generous gift! Truly provided good entertainment on a rainy day at the cottage.

Review: Xtracrylix Purisol Paint Remover

With Fairy Power Spray being pretty much useless nowadays and my last "proper" bottle running out, I was on the lookout for a suitable replacement. There are hundreds of threads on different forums on the subject with quite contradictory results so I wasn't too keen on trying something like brake fluid for example.

And then I bumped into this magical liquid called Xtracrylix Purisol Paint Remover. Not much could be found about it, but there was some praise so I figured I'd give it a try. I bought two bottles of Hannants for 3 pounds a piece. There's only 25ml of the stuff in a bottle so it is pretty darn expensive. With the cost in mind I was really expecting good results.

Important thing to note is that it is marked as being "Harmful to Health" so I'd suggest wearing protective gloves. There is also a very strong odor so ventilation is recommended as well. In the interest of science I naturally neglected both. It did cause some minor irritation on my skin so this definitely isn't something you want to leave anywhere near children or animals.

But to the most important part. Does it actually remove paint? I picked an old Chaos Space Marine model with a super thick paint job on it that actually concealed most of the details and the paint had been stuck on the model for years. In the instructions the recommended procedure is to brush the liquid on after which the paint should peel right off. On my test model I had negligible effect with paint coming of only on some raised areas before all the liquid had evaporated.

Glorious paint job with liberally applied unthinned globs of paint. Can this be remedied?

With a slight disappointment I decided to try the more traditional way of submerging the model in the liquid. One 25ml bottle was just enough to cover the miniature. This time the results were far better with paint literally peeling off into the liquid after only a few minutes of being submerged. After about 5 minutes I took the mini out and swept about 95% of the paint away with an old toothbrush. Another 5 minutes in the liquid after that removed the rest with a bit of help from a toothpick.

 After about 10 minutes in the liquid the paint literally peeled off. Good as new!

This method of submerging also doesn't waste that much of the precious and darn expensive paint remover. I've stored mine in an airtight jar that I can use to dip miniatures in. After a few test minis there isn't any noticeable decrease in it's performance so I think it will last for quite long this way. There is quite a build up of paint on the bottom, but I'd reckon using a strainer to remove that would help.

All in all a wonderful product that really removes paint better than anything I've used before. It is pretty expensive though so I'd recommend storing it in a jar where you can submerge miniatures instead of wasting it by painting it on them. I still need to test it more to see how many times I can use the liquid before it stops working, but in the mean time this is definitely the best product I've seen on the market.

Review: The History Book Man

This time no miniatures, but more "light" reading in the form of the excellent uniform and unit guides from W.J. Rawkins or "The History Book Man". I stumbled across his site when Loki from Loki's Great Hall mentioned his work a while back. As the books focus on more obscure nations that are a bit harder to find information on I decided to give it a try.

I bought myself a book about the Swedish Napoleonic army for future use in commissioning a small 1808 force of these as well as books on Swiss and Polish troops in French service. All the books have originally been published sometime in the late 70s and early 80s and are long out of print, but with the coming of modernish technology they have been re-edited, new colour images have been added and are now delivered in on DVD's.

A single DVD retails for 4 pounds, which is quite a bargain in my opinion. Inside the DVD you find a PDF, so nothing fancy or interactive. I'd personally have preferred just a downloadable PDF to save the waiting time of a DVD. There is the small cottage industry feel to these as the DVD's actually came with a blank face and a printed sticker that you need to attach yourself. To be honest it's not really a problem to get these on a DVD, but still saving on the postage would be nice and maybe the world would have a tiny bit less of useless stuff.

Having read through most of the book regarding the army of Sweden during 1802-1814 and glanced through the other two, they do come across as very thoroughly researched. The unique Swedish indelningsverk method of maintaining a largish army in a small country is explained thoroughly and all the uniform changes and peculiarities are explained both in writing and with pictures. This is definately a subject that is hard to find information on as there is little to none of it even in Swedish so I must applaud Mr. Rawkins for his research into the subject. Certainly helped me out a lot. The other books are of similar quality, though longer as those armies had far more combat experience and I would expect research material to be far easier to find.

For the price these are quite unbeatable as background material. They won't go into extremely obscure details, but will definately provide more than enough for your average wargamer and will be a good starting point for the more fanatical persona. Most of the titles are about the small German states so if you are planning those I'd definately recommend taking a look. The website states that they are planning to release 3 new or re-edited books this year, so it will be interesting to see what new nationalities will be covered.

Review: Perry Bros: Master's in Miniature

Well I haven't been able to paint too much recently and this week won't be any different as I'm writing this from a hotel room thanks to work commitments. However being stuck here isn't always so bad as I had some evening reading with me!

Recently the Perry Brothers came out with a new project called "Master's in Miniature" which is essentially a book chronicling their work. Being a huge fan of the Perrys I immediately ordered a copy, especially when I found out that they sold a limited amount of autographed versions through their own webstore.

The book is a quite large with around 160 pages and being formatted more as a coffee table art book rather than a "real" book. Inside you will find massive amounts of pictures (400+ they claim) of all the ranges that the brothers have designed for their own label. Every era and subject is detailed with roughly a page worth of text that gives some background explaining why they decided to sculpt minis for the period etc. Not much text in addition to these short pieces and then the short text pieces under most pictures.

The main interest in the book are of course the miniatures and the paintwork that has been applied on them. There are huge amounts of close ups and different vignettes and dioramas that have been staged up for the photo shoots. All of the miniatures apparently come from the Perry's personal collections and are the same ones that you might have seen on recent Warlord rules books for example. Amazing sscenery is naturally used in all pictures and there are some pretty convincing battle scenes played out.

Then to the bad parts. Even though the book offers a lot of eye candy and some inspirational miniatures, I still came out with a bad taste in my mouth. The book comes across as a flashy catalogue detailing the miniatures that the Perry Bros sell through own brand. Every era that they make is presented with pretty much every possible figure shown painted. None of their previous work for other companies is given any room and there isn't much content outside of the pretty pictures. It would have been interesting to have some more text detailing the ranges or the working processes that the brothers employ. Pretty much anything to make it look more like a true book rather than just a catalogue of their own products.

Still I wouldn't say it's a waste of your money, especially if you are a fan of their work. There are plenty of amazing miniatures to be seen and to draw inspiration from. It's maybe a bit pricy for what it is at 30 pounds, but then again the production values are very high with excellent print quality and very high quality gloss paper being used.