En Garde, Royal Fencing Competition

 The ever indefatigable Russell wanted to end 1607 in our long running En Garde campaign with a bang, so we had a double session of duelling, with massive rewards available for the winner.

The details of the competition are listed above. The rewards are pretty generous, bearing in mind that my monthly pay as a Major in a decent regiment is only 30 crowns a month. It wasn't a knockout competition but one based on multiple rounds an accumulation of points per round, but divided into an average as it wasn't possible to balance the number of bouts.

I played quite a few duels when En Garde came out back in the late 70s, and did a quick refresher crash course and a briefing for the participants. tbh, it is probably the worst swordfighting game I have ever come across, although at the time it seemed quite innovative.

The horror of the five text pages and three large tables of duelling rules seemed to put people off, and we only have five participants for the contest, although there was a good display of silly hats on offer. We all had to fight three or four rounds, depending.

My En Garde character, Major Eduard du Moulin, was pretty good at sword fighting. I was strong, had a good constitution and also had plenty of practice at fighting with a Rapier in the two (three?) years of the campaign. A quick comparison of stats revealed I had nearly three times as many hit points as some of the others, oh dear...

After much joshing and jollity, we eventually got to fight our first round, me vs Tim. I can't say it went particularly well, I easily defeated Tim, but the step by step action resolution took an age to resolve and wasn't hugely enjoyable for either the participants or the viewers. The scoring table for the competition is above, but I'm afraid there isn't much else to see in a paper based combat system.

We all agreed that the combat system was lousy, and that we were very unlikely to finish even over two nights. Fortunately John rode to the rescue by suggesting an alternate system....

Tim Price's 'Battle Cards', which we used to run lightsaber duels at a number of shows some years ago. The rules in their entirety are reproduced above, and combat is resolved using a deck of seven cards per player. The actions are surprisingly similar to En Garde, being parries, various strengths of attack and a 'rest' card. You need to read the rule section on the 'rest' card very carefully as we made a mistake with it to start with, you will always have the rest card in your hand, as you pick it up again when it is played.

Basically each player picks a card and reveals it, cross referencing the relevant action. This worked much better, it was visually entertaining as we could reveal the cards on screen and it was also fiendishly challenging making the card selections from an ever depleting deck. A very clever game.

Things rattled along very quickly after that, although it still took two evenings to fight the whole tournament. We even had time to do some gambling on the results of each round, which was also very entertaining as the odds fluctuated depending on the standings of the participants at that point in time.

I had a flutter on my most dangerous rival, Lt Colonel Tartiflette, as I figured if I was going to lose I may as well make some money on the way.

The final result, and despite losing appallingly badly in my last bout, I did eventually come out on top (just). The rewards are amazing, appointed Kings Champion for a year, a bonus of 3 social points per month for one year, 1000 crowns cash prize, a monthly pension of 25 crowns, free membership of a club of your choice, a free night out and a one level bump in social level. That puts my Major on Social Level 10, the equivalent of minor nobility, which will come in very handy with my career progression plans.

Sadly it means that dear Judith (SL9) is somewhat beneath my current station and a new paramour will need to be sought out. Having reached the end of 1607 however, we are taking a break from En Garde for a year or two, instead have Twilight 2000 or Cosmos 68 lined up for future retro RPG games. 

I'll have to file away all the En Garde stuff for future use, as there is an awful lot to keep track of. That has been loads of fun for the last couple of years though, even if it hasn't been very photogenic for the blog.

Birthday presents

 It was my birthday recently, and I got a few wargaming bits and pieces but not as much as in previous years.

We've been playing quite a few ACW games in recent years, and it is a conflict about which I'm monumentally ignorant. The second hand Baccus 6mm ACW Army I bought years ago is staring at me balefully, and before I start painting, I thought a campaign overview would be useful. Keegan was recommended as a good one volume history, and that will be fine for my purposes. I don't need Shelby Foote.

I like maps and pictures, and this looked like an ideal companion for Keegan. Lots and lots and lots of maps of campaigns and battles. Fabulous stuff. My only criticism is that the battle maps don't necessarily have the individual division annotated, but I'm sure I can figure it out from wikipedia or whatever.

My ever expanding Portable Wargame collection continues to grow. Again, Pike & Shot is something I've been playing around with for years, and it is great to have not one but two sets of P&S rules included, as well as Japanese Samurai warfare. Excellent value.

We've had such fun with the battles from the Command Decision scenario books covering Market Garden, Operation Compass and Operation Crusader, that I got a couple of extra ones. This one covers the US Army in Northwest Europe before the Bulge. There are already quite a few US scenarios included in the CD IV rulebook, but this is a very useful addition. 

And some more early war scenarios. This covers Poland, France etc and is a great companion to my Tac Publications 'Blitzkreig Campaigns' scenario book. Some more good looking scenarios in there including, some I can use my 15mm French and BEF stuff for, as well as couple of linked scenario mini campaigns. Fabulous.

What is this strange grey mushroom?

Well, I've been very jealous of Tims Feldmutze, so time I got one too. This one is courtesy of Soldier of Fortune, and is really rather nice. I can't recall the specific manufacturer (they do a few different ones), but this has very nice quality badges. Appearing at a WW1 game near you soon. It is a bit more practical than my Pickelhaube.

I also got a WW2 British Officers Service Dress cap (my original First World War one just doesn't have the same cut). Sadly this was a bit of a disappointment, despite being labelled as a 58, it is huge. A 62 I reckon, so it will have to go back. What a drag, I do hate the way sizing is so inconsistent with repro stuff. You'd think a hat is fairly easy to get right, especially as the Euro sizes are just the hat circumference in centimetres.

Edgehill (again)

Our new member, Diego, indicated he had an interest in the ECW so John put on a game using his 'Pike and Shot' rules which date from the late 1980s.  The battle chosen was Edgehill, which avid readers may recall we have already visited using both Neil Thomas Pike & Shot rules as well as Marsten Less. The general situation was therefore very familiar to the players.

Tim C and myself took the wicked Royalists, while Diego and Jerry took the defenders of parliament and demcracy. We played it with Johns very old 15mm figures.

The view from the Royalist side. Massed Royalist infantry in the centre, horse on the flanks with the right wing led by Rupert.

In this scenario, the Royalists have tired of waiting and have already advanced through their guns. I usually let them bang away a few ineffective shots first. The Royalsist are bunched into sort of mini-Tercios. I'm sure that will work well.

The rebellious parliamentarians in the distance. Their chaps seem to have rather more muskets than ours. Oh well.

Over on the right, some dragoons cover Ruperts flank.

As ever, the game was a chance to get out some hats. Tim had this rather grand cavaliers floppy hat.

And Jerry had this magnificent felted Monmouth Cap with a brim. My own offering of a wool Montero cap bore a suspicious resemblance ot a WW2 US Jeep Cap.

Our cavalry soon got stuck in, but the rebels turned an fled before crossing steel.

Meanwhile our foot pushed up in the centre.

Providing close support to our outnumbered horse on the left.

As our cavalry on the left engaged, the infantry managed to shoot up some rebels

And in the centre, one rebel infantry regiment disintegrated and ran away. Hurrah!

Astonishingly Rupert managed to restrain the cavalry from pursuing.

They hovered around a bit....

Then decided to have a go at the nearest rebel infantry. Sadly this proved to be a catastrophic mistake as their morale was rather high and they also proved to be excellent shots, felling Rupert with their musketry and breaking the cavalry. Ouch.

Over on the left flank the cavalry slog continued with both sides amassing lots of hits.

After the rout of Ruperts cavalry, the Royalist infantry were left engaged, but sadly these Parliamentarians were somewhat higher quality.

The pursuing Parlimentary cavalry were getting dangerously close to Edgehill by now, but over on the far left the battle was going the Kings way.

In the town itself the Gentlemen Pensioners had spent most of the day drinking and swapping jokes with the somewhat unemployed gunners (as most of the time they'd been masked by their own troops).

We drew hostilities to a close as an honourable draw. For a set of rules penned in the late 1980s, they gave a very reasonable and (and fairly modern) type of game and it was nice to see Johns old 15mm ECW troops which hadn't been out for some time.

Edge Hill - again

We have had a couple of outings at the club of 'Martson Less' by Tony Cullen, a very simple and abstract set of ECW rules, and I was keen to see how they worked for historical battles. We'd already tried Neil Thomas's Pike & Shot for both ECW and TYW, and frankly, they were a little clunky in places. I could see how ML could easily be adapted into a more generic approach, but I also worked up some mods to be able to use them in the Thirty Years War, particularly the earlier period with Tercios etc.

I re-used the Edge Hill scenario I'd done for the Neil Thomas rules, but reworked the OBs to use with Marston Less elements. Tim and John took the Royalists, Tim C and Tom the Parliamentarians. We played the game with my 2mm Irregular pike blocks.

The battlefield, Royalists on the left, parliament on the right. For this scenario each element is around 500 men or eight guns, so the infantry regiments have two stands, cavalry one. ML is a grid based game, each 'line' occupying a zone, with the strength of its constituent elements. Both armies stuck with the historical deployment with Ruperts horse massed on the Royalist right and their infantry in a cumbersome chequerboard. Essex's forces are deployed in  more conventional straight lines.

Close up of the centre. The Royalsit infantry are weaker but they have their guns up on the ridge and able to fire overhead. Troop quality for the infantry units is represented by the mix of blocks.

After a preliminary cannonade, Rupert charged forwards and a bloody melee ensued. At this point the first Parliamentarian line has been overwhelmed and Ruperts victorious troopers have pursed headlong into the second line. ach line can take four hits (indicated by the white crosses) before it routs. At this juncture Essex decided it would be better to attack the ridge than wait to be enveloped by the Royalist cavalry. 

After a couple of rounds of combat, both infantry first lines were routed and the second lines entered the fray. On the flank, Rupert was victorious but failed (twice) to hal this pursuing troopers and they left the table to loot the baggage in Kineton. The Royalist second line was very weak (a single element) but managed to work its way cautiously into Essex's rear. Over on the other flank, some minor cavalry skirmishing developed.

Sadly for Essex, his army broke against the ridge and the survivors streamed off the table. Historically he declined to attack, and that was probably why! So, a strategic and a tactical victory for the King, but the war will undoubtedly drag on for years to come.

I was pretty pleased how this turned out, and the players seemed to find it enjoyable despite the limitations of some of the abstractions. We rattled through the whole thing in an hour or so and I'd like to try it for the Thirty Years are next

If anyone is interested in a copy of Marston Less, they are at Staines Wargamers

Fleurus, 1622

After the success of Edgehill, I wanted to give the Neil Thomas Pike and Shot rules another go in a different period, this time the Thirty Years War. Although I am fairly up on Gustavus Adolphus and the Swedes, the workings of the earlier Imperial and Protestant armies have always been a bit of mystery to me, so this was always going to be a bit of an experiment.

I wanted to do something from the early period before everyone had discovered the primacy of firepower so I dug around a bit on wikipedia and came with the Battle of Fleurus in 1622. An army of Protestant mercenaries (which included the Bishop of Halberstadt) in the hire of the Dutch and en route to raise the Spanish siege of Bergen-op-Zoom. The battle was fought near Fleurus, and also quite near to Quatre Bras and Ligny, so an exciting part of the world.

Eager defenders of the faith rolled up, John and Jerry took the wicked Spanish and Tim G took the wicked Protestants. As usual played with my 2mm stuff on a few hastily assembled carpet tiles. This was the first outing for my big pike blocks and Tercio stands some of which are dimly visible in the photos. (Many thanks to Tim for the photos, the SD card in my phone died and I lost all mine).

General layout of the battlefield. Protestants nearest the camera. Cordobas Spanish deployed with their flanks resting on the woods. I had to juggle the armies a bit to fit in with the historical strengths. The eight ad-hoc disorganised Protestant infantry battalions became two huge levy infantry regiments, whilst their excellent cavalry became three good quality horse units, one of which was led by the Bishop. The Spanish were a real dogs dinner and ended up with two elements of poor horse and three huge Esquadrons, one of which (incorporating the veteran Tercio of Naples) was rated as elite.

After a prolonged cannonade the Protestants moved forward and engaged in a musketry duel. This bit was quite good fun as the big infantry units packed a lot of firepower and very soon hits were flying all over the place. Sadly the Protestant cavalry discovered quite quickly that the big regiments were extremely dangerous to horsemen.

Eventually it came to push of pike and things went a bit pear shaped. A feature of the Neil Thomas rules in all periods is that units which are 'better' in close combat than their opponents get multiple dice per base, and as all the bases fight, regardless of unit depth, any advantages are compounded. The veteran Spaniards were considerably 'better' than their opponents, and ended up throwing 24 dice per regiment vs 12 for the poor old Protestants, which felt a  bit clumsy. The same thing happens in the Ancients set when Romans are fighting barbarians, it just feels a bit overpowered, particularly as the rules are aimed at armies of equal size It became fairly obvious at this point that the Protestants were going to get massacred, so we called it a day.

The problem is probably fixable. I could vary the forces sizes (historically the Protestants outnumbered the Spanish almost 2:1 but still lost!) and also have a look at how mixed units and combat advantages translate into close combat dice, possibly varying the to-hit rolls instead, but I don't want to break the basic system.

Along with thinking about rules modifications, I also had a look around at some other rules, particularly 'Marston Less' and the English Civil War Command and Colours variant, both of which would be easy to adapt to the Thirty Years War.. So, we'll head back to the killing fields of central Europe at some point, but I need to do a bit more tinkering around first.

2mm ECW

A period I have been interested in, yet never taken the plunge, is the English Civil War. Mainly the same reasons as it took me 30 years to finally do WSS, I was never interested enough to do serious uniform research for larger scale figures. However, a chance purchase from Mr Gow of some 2mm pike blocks got me thinking. I already had a load of 2mm WSS foot and horse, and in this scale no-one could actually tell what uniforms the units are wearing, so coupled with a few more pike blocks.....

The resulting mayhem.

The elements I had were supplemented with a few/several/quite a few extra pike blocks from Irregular (and some more horse and guns, well you can never have too many can you?). Sorting out the proportions of various types was fairly easy as once more Neil Thomas had ridden to the rescue with an eminently approachable set of pike & shot rules, coupled with vast army lists. Just to be on the safe side I sorted out enough stuff to do not only the ECW, but also the Thirty Years War (also a long abiding interest) and the oft neglected Franco-Spanish War.

I based all the elements the same as my existing WSS figures, on 30x15mm bases with multiple strips of foot, horse or guns. Some elements (like Tercios and some very big pike blocks) I put on 30x30 to use as double size bases. As Neil Thomas's units have six bases (twelve for Tercios and TYW units), I also made up a load of magnetic movement trays in various denominations as the tiny elements are so fiddly to move otherwise.

For a scenario I chose Edgehill and took the terrain, OB and deployment from Richard Brook's excellent 'Battlefields of Britain'.

A some what blurry shot of Edgehill. The lower slopes are on the right, tributary of the river Dene at the top. Parliament on the left, the Kings Army on the right. Rupert is leading the Royalist horse forward at the very top, and at the bottom, Parlimentary horse have driven back their opposite numbers. The infantry centre is engaged in musketry.

Push of Pike in the centre. The Royalists have suffered brutally from the more effective Parliamentary musketry.

 The game was run at the Sheffield club, the overall battlefield was 80cm x 80cm (I reduced the suggested ground scale slightly as I use 30mm wide bases, not 40mm) and the armies broadly used the historical deployment although Parliament decided that their left flank was a lost cause against Rupert, so reinforced the horse on their right.

Deciding moment of the game, the weakened Parliamentary horse manages a spectacular saving throw!

The battle folowed the broadly historical course,much to my delight. The centre engaged in a dour slugging match, with parliament gaining the upper hand due to their superior equipment, however Rupert routed the Parlament left, and promptly left the battlefield to loot the baggage! This prompted half the Parliamentary centre to head for the hills, and suddenly things looked a bit brighter for the struggling Royalist pikemen. However over on the right, the parliamentary horse won a spectacular victory over their Royalist counterparts despite being completely outmatched, and in turn they overran the Royalist artillery and also headed for the baggage. The weakened Royalist centre broke, leaving both sides utterly exhausted and with an honourable draw.

I was really rather pleased with how it went. The toys were a bit fiddly, but the movement trays helped a great deal, and the rules (which looked a bit dubious at first) produced an exciting and fast moving game which was over by a thoroughly civilised 9pm. Neil Thomas triumphs again! I wish I had his rule writing skill. For the next outing I'd like to try the Thirty Years War, but although I studied it at school and University, my memory is hazy and I'll need to do a bit of reading. Which is lucky, as I've just bought 'Europes Tragedy' by Peter Wilson.