Cry 'HAVOC' and who let the dogs out? No, that's not right. Anyway, Havoc 28 was fun

One of the three American brigades sets up

I had to overcome a few obstacles to make it this year, but I did get to drop in for a few hours at the premier wargame convention in New England, Havoc XXVIII. Sponsored by Battlegroup Boston, the con was held, as it is every year, at Maironis Park in Shrewsbury, just across the river from Worcester, Mass.

This year I ran two games, took part in none. The morning session was a naval game that I'll detail in a future post, but the afternoon session was an American Revolution scenario called No school Like Old School which was a straight up slugfest among six similarly sized brigades -- three to a side, with Random setups.

Each brigade was similar in size, with a battalion of regular line infantry, a section of guns and in 5 of the 6 cases, a troop of dragoons. The sixth brigade (the Hessian) substituted a small battalion of grenadiers for the horse for the very good reason that I don't have any Hessian horse troops.

Each of the six players was given the option to draft one additional unit from among those available. For the British side the additional units amounted to a British grenadier battalion, a light infantry battalion and some Indians. For the Colonials the additional units were a battalion of light infantry, a battalion of roundball riflemen and a regiment of militia.

These 4-unit brigades seemed to work very well with players not otherwise familiar with the rules. They had enough to do, and had a chance to handle all arms (line, horse, artillery and special troops) and the game went briskly.

The American side edged out a win, holding 3 of the five buildings set as victory conditions -- with victory conceded on Turn 8. Losses were reasonably even, although the small cavalry troops took very heavy losses. By game end there were just two shot-up, broken troops remaining from the five starters. One gun section was overrun. Among the six line units, the Hessains were routed form the field and one of the two British was shaken, while two American line units were broken/shaken as well. On the other hand, all the special units were still active and in good order at game end, including the militia. Despite all being in the thick of things, only one of the six brigadiers had a horse shot out from under him.

I think I'll plan on sticking with the smaller brigades in future convention games. As tempting as it is to give the brigadiers a hefty army to play with (a standard brigade under the rules tends to have 5-6 units and an artillery battery) the smaller brigades seem to work better in practice with players unfamiliar with the rules.

As usual, there was a lot of good stuff going on at Havoc, with a lot of great scenario and awesome scenery. And it wasn't all wargames, either, as this photo of a car race game shows.

Talk at the con was that attendance seemed a bit off this year, but nearly all the games were well-stocked with players and overall there seemed to be an adequate crowd on Saturday. I can't speak to the Friday and Sunday events, however.

Hauled out an old-timer today

Yes, I hauled out one of my all-time favorite game -- a set of miniatures rules from the 1980s called The Complete Brigadier.

Covering the heart of the black power era, from 1680 to 1880, The Complete Brigadier is a very tactical game ruthlessly focus on the perspective of a brigade-level commander.

My miniatures for this set of rules are from Flaying Pan & Blanket Amalgamated, 20 mm scale American Revolution figures. It just so happened that a couple of decades ago I often had staff duty officer while stationed in Germany. And because we were a nuclear-capable missile unit, we had secret message traffic all night long, so the SDO could not nap. As a consequence I had quite a bit of time on mu hands on a weekly basis and I used it to paint up a few hundred figures. I haven't had that kind of time since.

I won't say that they are well-painted, but they;re passable for wargame purposes.

I like the rules because they're very straightforward and while reasonably complex, they are intuitive. The rules concentrate on formations and orders and are deterministic when it comes to fireing and melee. There are enough modifiers that the outcome of combats is not overly predictable.

I ran a demo of the game at the local game shop today. I commanded a British force comprised of two regular foot battalions, a small converged grenadier battalion, an even smaller squadron of dragoons, a full-sized artillery battery and some Indians. Deployed off to one flank across a stream were three large battalions of Hessians, but unknown to the American player this was just a distraction force. The Hessians didn't know the stream was fordable and would therefore not take part in the attack.

The American player -- experienced with board games and Magic: The Gathering but not historical miniatures -- had a force comprised of a battalion of Continetnal Line, a battalion of militia, small battalions of light infantry and riflemen, a troop of dragoons and a small artillery battery. His missionw as to defend the hill, specifically the mansion near the top.

Because the opposing player was a newbie, a treated this as demo game, without a focus on victory for one side or the other. That said, it was an interesting and well-fought battle.

The Americans basically deployed in two lines of units -- with the first line made up of the militia, the Continentals and the light infantry, while the dragoons, rifles and artillery formed the second line.

For my part I placed the Indians on the far left, with an eye towards having them sweep on a wide flanking move though some woods. On the right I placed the lights and the dragoons, whose mission was to fix the Americans in front of them. In a compact mass in the center I placed the grenadiers and foot, with the artillery lined up in column on the road. I hoped to outflank the main American line with fire support form the guns.

The battle more or less followed the plan, with the inevitable adjustments due to the enemy's vote. On the right the lights advanced into firing range of both the American light infantry and the rifles while the dragoons attracted the attention of the gunners. There ensued a long exchange of fire that the lights and dragoons eventually lost. The good news is that this tied up half the American force for most of the battle, but the bad news was that it was costly.

The American player was not content to passively accept the attack and moved the Continentals and the dragoon troop up to meet the main British attack. The dragoons and the light infantry were pushed back by the advancing British foot units and as the game ended due to time on Turn 10 the British grenadiers and the Buffs were about to take the house. The American dragoons with the rebel general attached were last seen sabering the fleeing remnants of the other British foot unit but were out of the battle. Likewise the Continentals could not resist the opportunity to charge the British guns just as they were about to unlimber -- chasing them back and eventually capturing the whole lot. This also, however, removed the only regular formed Ameircan unit fromt he critical point.

Left holding the bag were the hapless militia, who were hit on both flanks. On one side was the Buffs, while on the other side were the Indians, who had completed their sweeping move and were now in the American rear area. The militia dissolved in a quick rout.

Overall, with two turns left, the Americans had no formed troops left in position to contest the objective, but the game ended due to time before the final moves could be made.

Still, it was a hard-fought battle, with the British side suffering more heavily. Of the American units the Continentals, the light infantry and the artillery were all unscathed., while the rifles had 9 of 12 left and the dragoons 5 of 6 figures left. Only the militia unit was completely destroyed.

On the British side, in contrast, the light infantry, dragoons on one foot unit had all routed off the field and the artillery battery were prisoners! The grenadiers had 10of 12 left while the Buffs had 22 of 24 figures left. Only the Indians had avoided loss.

Review: The Complete Brigadier

The Complete Brigadier is, in many ways, a very old-fashioned kind of miniatures wargame covering the black powder era, from 1680 to 1880. It's more reminiscent of Little Wars or Charge! than many newer sets of rules.
It has a ruthless focus on the brigadier's fight, unlike most popular rules of recent vintage which try to cover whole battles.
No, in The Complete Brigadier the objective is immediate. Take that hill, flank that line, defend along this creek, and so on.
The player represents a brigade commander, generally in charge of a four or five battalions of infantry, a battery of guns and an attached regiment of horse. Each figure represents 20 men. The game concerns itself with formations, orders and weapons in direct and explicit ways.
There are no fancy interactive phases or abstract shortcuts.
Brigadiers first write up orders for their units, using specific commands drawn from historically based options, specifying formation, direction and rate of march.
Next, melee battles initiated the turn before are resolved, using a deterministic process that considers morale, numbers, weapons, formation and terrain.
Units then move in accordance with their previously written orders, reacting automatically to unexpected encounters based on historical doctrine. For example, an infantry unit encountering enemy cavalry may form a square.
Then units engage in fire, selecting targets based on a formula that again is based on historical practices. Unlike most games, firing is not generally optional. Unless specifically ordered not to shoot, a unit will fire on targets within range. The results of fire combat are determined by formula without any dice, but taking into account weapons, morale and various other factors.
After resolving all fire units check morale, based on quality, losses and local circumstances, again with no roll of the die involved.
Finally, based on actions taken that turn, units expend some of their limited pool of "stamina." Firing, meleeing and moving at anything faster than a slow walk all cost stamina. As one might expect, it's easier to expend stamina than replenish it, and better troops have more of it than poor troops.
The game includes all sorts of special rules for special cases such as burning buildings, moving on boats, irregular troops, building fieldworks and most anything else one might expect to see affecting a brigade level fight.
Probably the hardest thing for most wargamers to get used to is the lack of any luck element. While the designer lays out his case for the historicity of his approach, the main reason for minimizing the role of luck is to maximize the extent that The Complete Brigadier can be a duel of skill between two brigadiers. The only pure luck element in the entire game is a fate roll for the chances of the brigadier himself getting hit, and if hit, how badly hit. A couple of D6 rolls will determine his fate, although only two consecutive sixes will "seriously wound" the brigadier, resulting in him being "carried from the field by his staff" and replaced by his previously identified second-in-command.
The game includes many clever and entertaining illustrations, a well-organized and well-indexed set of rules, and entire booklet devoted to explaining how to get into miniature gaming with tips for making terrain, painting troops and organizing scenarios. It has references and suggestions for fielding armies throughout the era from 1680 to 1880. It includes five scenarios, all based on battles in North America: Plains of Abraham, 1759; Guilford Courthouse, 1781; Crysler's Farm, 1813; Palo Alto, 1846 and Mill Springs, 1862. Information for troops and weapons from throughout the period are included, however, and there's really no limits on what setting can be used.
While my usual and favorite era for the game is the American Revolution, I've also organized games from the American Civil War, the War of 1812 and the Zulu War of 1879.
The game can be used with any scale figures. Distances are measured in "spaces" which represent 20 yards on the ground. Based on figure scale a space can be anywhere from 3/4-inch (for 9mm figures) to 2 inches (30mm figures). A space is one inch for the most popular scale, 15mm, and also for my preferred scale 20mm.
Unlike many miniatures games, a game master or umpire is not required. The game can be played by just two, although I would highly recommend players play in the the proper spirit of traditional miniatures wargaming, as exemplified by the accounts in Little Wars and Charge! Rules lawyers, Munchkins and people who would rather win than be a proper gentleman or gentle lady are advised to play something else, or at least avail themselves of an umpire.
As a game master I generally only make minor modifications to the rules. I add a small luck element by allowing players to roll for fractional hits instead of rounding up or down as per the rules. This seems a minor concession to player expectations and historical accuracy without changing the game in any significant way. I also generally allow players more leeway with their Follow Me command (when they attach themselves directly to a unit) than a strict interpretation of the rules as written would allow.
Other than that, I play the game by the book and have done so for more than 20 years now. It's been an excellent investment, resulting in many hours of fun for me and my friends.
It's still one of my all-time favorites, despite more than two decades of competition from newer stuff.