Designing is hard work!

Emerging scenario for Kilsyth 1645

My Venture Fair rules will cover five of the battles from the the brilliant campaign fought by Montrose during 1644-45. The battles were:

Tibbermore 1 September 1644
Aberdeen 13 September 1644
Inverlochy 2 February 1645
Auldearn 9 May 1645
Alford 2 July 1645
Kilsyth 15 August 1645
Philliphaugh 13 September 1645

I don't intend to cover Inverlochy, largely because this was a simple and ruthless massacre with little real interest for a wargames scenario. Also, Philiphaugh isn't on my list. Basically a surprise assault by the Covenanters destroyed Montrose's forces in short order with a resulting nasty massacre of prisoners and civilians. Again, not really good material for a wargame.

I'm not approaching this in any order but have done enough work on Tibbermore and Aberdeen to begin play testing. I've been using Stuart Reid's Auldearn 1645 as my main source. Aberdeen was straightforward but Tibbermore was problematic and I ended up rethinking it significantly. Ironic really as this is the only one of the battles fields I'm personally familiar with.

So I started on Kilsyth the other night not knowing what I would find when I reviewed my earlier draft. Lets not forget I drafted these scenarios out several years ago using the same sources.

So, some days later, I think I have finally got  grip on the battle. Here is my sketch:

Thanks again to DoW and their map editor for M44

The right hand of the map is North. Montrose was between the Covenanter forces and Glasgow and Baillie, their commander, took his forces to find Montrose. He followed the road just off the left hand side of the map towards Glasgow. Montrose had drawn up in position yellow 1, possibly to ambush Baillie as he moved along the road (position blue 1).

Baillie spotted the ambush and took his troops off the road towards the north, using the local hills to hide his movement. However, when the Covenanters eventually moved out of cover through positions blue 2, Montrose reacted to being outflanked by moving his troops towards positions yellow 2. 

The Covenanter commanded shot under a Col. Haldane, decided to have a go at the Royalists and moved into a group of cottages and enclosures known as Auchinvalley, precipitating contact with the Royalist Highland units. This engagement prevented Baillie prolonging his line towards the north so he used his cavalry to seek to outflank the Royalist line (blue 3). Royalist cavalry moving across the rear of their line (second yellow 2 position) from the original positions dealt with this threat. 

Weight of numbers and experience told as the Royalists broke the Covenanter centre and the Royalist right wing destroyed Baillie's left flank.  

I have really enjoyed learning about this battle and think I have now got enough of an idea to make a worthwhile scenario. Interestingly, I only made progress once I turned the map round by 90 degrees, then things began to make sense. Possibly a life lesson there!

A d8? What!!!

Combat in Venture Fair

I have been applying my brain to work issues recently (honest Boss) so it has been a pleasant change to redeploy the gray cells back onto Venture Fair, my developing Montrose game.

I find that, in all my projects, even quite simple problems can slow me down. For example, having progressed my Tannenberg game really quickly, the hold up is about drawing convincing rail lines on my draft map. In Venture Fair, the issue is how to resolve combat. 

My conceptual model for the game is Stephen Simpson's '45 game series which uses an unusual opposed die roll. One player, the attacker, rolls a d6, the defender a d8. Deduct the d6 roll from the d8 roll, if minus the defender takes a hit.

Doing the maths, a d6/d8 roll will produce 1 of 56 outcomes. 15 of these outcomes are in the attacker's favour (26% ish). The equivalent to hit number on a single d6 roll is somewhere between a 5 and 6. Each point on a d6 being around 17%.

A benefit from this is that modifiers in the d6/d8 model have a smaller impact than those for a single d6 or, indeed, 2d6 model.

I have given quite a lot of thought to various approaches including the DBA type calculation. A problem I have with DBA is that my brain finds it difficult to cope with the results (if less than but more than half and elephants are attacked by spears before breakfast...).

Even though I have a d8 I can't say I have ever used it in anger. However, I'm beginning to like the d6/d8 concept but I just can't do the mental maths. Taking one score from another may require taking off socks. Is there anyway I can simplify things? 

Well yes. I pulled together a spreadsheet to look at the results distribution and realised I had actually developed a combat results table. This means that using a comparison of total scores (die roll plus modifiers) I could get an easy to read matrix.

OK, and even more simple? Well lets make all modifiers positive. No horrible subtraction, just adding.

Do we need lots of modifiers? No, a few and even then why have loads of tactical advantage modifiers when perhaps only one might do. So, depending on the circumstances, there will either be an advantage or not. Therefore, a small number of binary modifiers.

That's great, I just have to make it work in practice!

Oh, and this arrived in the post today. A first glance, very nice, just right for playing over the bank holiday weekend.

Venture Fair

A prototype Montrose game

Long long ago I started out to write a version of Stephen Simpson's 1745 rules for the campaigns of Montrose. They were called "Nil Medium Est" (No Middle Way). And here they are in all their hand written glory!

My main source was Auldearn by Stuart Reid (Campaign 123) and that remains the primary basis for the scenarios, see below.

I have been frustrated with these rules for a long time because, although only two pages long, they still feel too complex. I also had a big problem with the maps and how to actually draw them.

I have taken some decisions and had a bright idea. Ideally the game will be played on a hex grid and use toy soldiers. At present my Baccus ECW troops are unpainted and hidden in the garage. Therefore this prototype uses counters. They also use a map, in this case, the M44 scenario editor has been used. The M44 editor does not produce really printable maps but for a prototype it is just the thing. Once the troops are sorted I could even play on the Hold the Line map using the HTL tiles.

One map herewith for the battle of Aberdeen.

Graphics copyright Days of Wonder

And here are some counters I made.....

I'm quite pleased with these. Not good enough for a final print but good for a trial run. And last but not least, here is a test set up for Aberdeen.

Now I can get down to designing some new rules. These will be called "Venture Fair" after Montrose's code name. Hurrah!