The Battle of Ramillies, 1706

It having been an age since I had played Maurice by Sam Mustafa and a friend expressing an interest in trying them out, I decided to run a game at the club.

I found a scenario for the Battle Ramillies (the only one of Marlborough’s famous battles scaled for two players as opposed to four players - using the optional ‘Doubles’ rules).

The game was as fun as remember; however, whilst I had explained the rules I didn’t give my friend enough pointers on tactics as he was playing Marlborough and so needed to be pretty aggressive to win.

Here are a few photos from the game:

Another Outing for Maurice

Here is another belated post from over 12 months ago.  This time it's some photos from a 15mm Marlburian game using the Maurice rules from Sam Mustafa.

A friend of mine had expressed an interest in trying out the rules and I was happy to oblige if only to get my toys back to the table (I'm in the process of expanding that collection right now from what you see here).

This was a simple engagement with the Allies holding a village on their right and the French, commanded by me, advancing to try to take it from them.

Anyway here are some pictures of the game:

More Maurice

I wanted to give my WSS collection a bit of an outing and Lenin was keen to try Maurice again but using the full rules - so we did a pick up and play game using the set up from the book.

The key additions from our previous game were National Characteristics, Notables, early 18th Century artillery and variable weather.  National Characteristics are handled through points for this type of game but I suspect we would choose them for a more historically based one.  We chose to have two Notables each - these are drawn from the whole period the rules cover and so you can get some rather strange combinations (as indeed we did!).

Lenin took command of the English forces and chose Lethal Volleys as his only National Characteristic and drew Jonathan Russell, Earl of Bragge and Kershaw, Earl of Brent as his Notables.

I reprised my previous role as commander of the French choosing à la Baïonnette! as my only National Characteristic.  I then drew the Reverend Howard Whitehouse and Giovanni di Tripodi as my Notables.  We both decided to utilise one of our Notables as a Chief of Staff and placed the other with the cavalry.

Terrain placement was an interesting phase as Lenin focussed on creating an excellent defensive position for me to assault and so missed the chance to mess up my deployment and communications with some awkward placement.  We ended up with a hill in centre with woods and a marsh around it and a large town to Lenin's left.  The objective was, of course, in the town.

Lenin deployed his artillery on the central hill with most of his cavalry massed to their left and most his infantry between them and the town, with one unit as a garrison force.  His remaining cavalry and his other infantry were placed in column to his rear (something I suspect he would have done differently now) with the cavalry behind the town.

I deployed my forces with my infantry on my right in two lines facing the town, my artillery in the centre and my cavalry to the left.

Initially my foot advanced towards the town.  So the English advanced their horse to threaten my infantry's left and moved the remainder of his cavalry through the town to reform and threaten the centre of my foot.

I countered the horse on my left with my own horse and my foot stood and volleyed the English horse as emerged from the town.

A cavalry battle ensued with the Earl of Bragge leading repeated charges at my horse but having squadron after squadron shatter against the superior French!

Meanwhile the English horse facing the centre of my infantry were being decimated by volley after volley of musketry and eventually fell back.  I then advanced on the town extending my right flank to concentrate my fire on the English garrison.

The English advanced their foot in the centre but I threatened them with my horse and my foot eventually overcame the English garrison in the town.  The remaining English advanced to the rear of the town to prevent me outflanking them and moving into their rear.

With the English morale failing but the objective still contested dusk fell and the engagement was declared a draw.

First Play: Maurice

Our second game was a real play of Maurice using my recently completed War of Spanish Succession figures.  We opted to have a basic game to begin with so without National Advantages or Notables - leaving those for the next game.  Lenin took command of the British forces (attacking) and I took the French (defending).

We used the terrain generation from the rules.  Lenin picked the Urban card and, having rolled the dice, we both selected the low numbers so we ended up with a relatively clear table - two built up areas connected by a road with a hill and a wood.  The objective was then placed in the built up area on my side.  As the defender I deployed first with my two squadrons of dragoons on the left wing, my five battalions of infantry in the centre and the three cavalry squadrons on the right.  I made the huge mistake of splitting my three artillery batteries and placing in between the infantry units.  Lenin deployed his cavalry on his left, half the infantry to the left of the hill, all three artillery batteries on the hill itself, the remaining three battalions of infantry between the hill and the wood and his two squadrons of dragoons behind the woods.

Things began slowly with the British artillery bombarding my infantry for a couple of turns as Lenin familiarised himself with the rules and the cards.  Then he advanced the three battalions of infantry on his left.  I decided to threaten the infantry with my cavalry, Lenin responded and so a cavalry clash ensued.  I thought I would have the upper hand as I had the Stirrups In card but Lenin also had it!

Unfortunately lady luck wasn't with me and the cavalry melee saw my squadrons being pushed back.  In the following round the front two broke.  I threw my final squadron in and had a little better luck but eventually they broke too - leaving Lenin free to advance his infantry on his left.

To try to hold the infantry on his right flank I advanced my dragoons.  My initial charge was repulsed but the dragoons reformed and charged again but were thrown back again.  The tactic was only being partially successful as the front battalion of infantry engaged me whilst the two behind formed column and advanced to the centre of the field.

With my left flank hanging due to the loss of my cavalry I moved my reserve infantry to plug the gap whilst Lenin pushed all his infantry forward.

My artillery bombardments were pretty ineffective as I couldn't co-ordinate them having split them up and so the British came on.  Musketry was exchanged followed by the British charging in.  My battalions held and threw the British back.  They came on again and were repulsed again but one of my units broke.  I decided to counter attack but lady luck deserted me once again and my attack was unsuccessful.  Fortunately, I was saved by the failing light and the British were forced to withdraw.

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Maurice played pretty well, although I think leaving out the National Advantages was a mistake as Lenin was concerned about the "flavour" being missing (and thus being more at the game end of the game/simulation spectrum).  The game started slowly as we both got the hang of things but picked up after that and had a nice ebb and flow.  It certainly provides some real challenges with you wanting to keep cards for their effects but needing them for their span.  The game was really close with my army morale down to two and Lenin's down to one (at least in part due to my sharpshooters taking out some hero on his side!) - and darkness ending the game.  We're certainly going to give these another outing.

First Look: Maurice

Since four possible choices for rules for my Marlburian project clearly weren't enough, I decided to pick up a copy of Maurice too.

The main rulebook is softback and 112 pages long.  It is split into two main sections, the Basic Game and the Advanced Game.   The first section covers the introduction, game set up, an overview of play, movement, volley & bombardment (firing), combat and some housekeeping.  The second section covers Epic (campaign) Points, Notables (personalities), optional advanced rules, historical scenarios, the Succession Wars campaign system and the Quick Reference Sheets.  The book is US letter size, generally in two columns and full colour.  The rules are clearly explained with examples, diagrams and interspersed with pictures of figures etc.

The rules are intended to cover a century of warare - 1690 to 1790.  This is quite a range and there were a significant changes in tactics over that time.  In addition, the unit and ground scales are flexible.  So these are clearly intended to lean more towards the game end rather than the simulation end of the spectrum.

Units are artillery, regular or irregular infantry and cavalry.  They are intended to be represented by four bases although other than for formation representation I am not sure this is critical as there is no figure or base removal.  Distances are all stated in "Base Widths" and so can be used irrespective of the actual basing of the figures.

The system relies heavily on cards, is IGO-UGO but with the chance to interrupt actions if you have the appropriate card.  The cards themselves are available separately (in a rather nice box), you can download the ones for the Basic Game from the website (but not for the Advanced Game).  A card based system for random terrain generation is included based around a fairly standard table set up and there is a points based system to create pick up and play games.

Each player has an initial hand of cards, which is usually larger for the player designated as the attacker.  These Action Cards are either Interrupt Cards (which can be played in the opponent's turn), Event Cards (which may be played to cause the card text to come into effect) or Modifier Cards (which can be used to improve the various Actions).  All the cards have a Span number on them as well and can be played for this rather than their other role (more of than later).

A game is played in alternating rounds with the attacker going first.  The active player can decide whether there will be a volley phase in the round (where infantry will fire) although the passive player can reverse this decision if they have the appropriate card.  The active player then has a choice to Pass, play an Event or play an Action.  Passing allows you to draw three cards into your hand (up to a normal maximum total hand size of 10) but do nothing else.  Playing an Event allows you to play an Event Card and have the text occur but does not allow you to draw any cards.  Playing an Action allows you to activate a group of units to march, charge, rally or, if they are artillery, bombard.  The more aggressive the action the less cards you get the draw into your hand.

The groups of units you can activate are quite limited, they must be of the same type, in the same formation and in the terrain that has the same impact on movement.  In order to activate a group you need to play cards the sum of whose Span numbers is equivalent to or greater than the distance between the C in C and the nearest unit of the group.  In addition you can play Modifier Cards which are relevant to the action they are performing.

Movement is dependent on unit type, formation and terrain and formation changes are neatly handled with both having the appropriate limitations for the period.  Oblique movement is available as an advanced rule to be included for games later in the periods covered.

Firing consists of a roll to hit which must then be converted to a Disruption.  Units can usually take 4 Disruptions before they evaporate.  The rally action can be used to remove Disruptions.  Melee is an opposed dice roll added to a modified combat value for the unit quality (Elite, Trained, Conscript etc.).

A game will run until the card deck has been run through a couple of times (a reshuffle card is added after the first time through, which allows the discard deck to be shuffled back into the draw pile and then removed after it appears) or when an Army's morale breaks.  If the card deck is exhausted then night is deemed to have fallen and control of a pre-determined objective determines victory.

The advanced rules provide for Epic Points which are useable in a campaign context; Notables who are attached to individual units and can provide them with benefits or, indeed handicaps (this is the age of nepotism!); reinforcements, engineering, pikes, additional artillery rules and an outline of how to play with two players per side (using two card decks, I note).

Guidance for scenario designers is also included along with three historical scenarios - the Battles of Fontenoy in 1745, Kolin in 1757 and Brandywine in 1777.  The Succession Wars section then provides a simply framework for playing campaigns and there are a few FAQs and the five page QRS to finish off (although it should be noted that the QRS is bound in and there isn't a separate one provided - a pdf is available to download though).

Overall, I am impressed by the presentation (although it ought to be good considering the price!), the card based approach looks very interesting but I am slightly worried that it may end up being a little too abstract - only actually playing will tell that though.  It will certainly be interesting to compare these to the other rules I have for the period.

Maurice

The latest set of rules in the Honour series from Sam Mustafa (author of Lasalle and Might & Reason) is now available for pre-order.

Maurice is intended to cover the period from the Wars of Louis XIV up to the French Revolution.  It has a campaign system and the rules themselves are card driven.

More details are available on the Introductory Flyer and a "lite" version of the rules is also available for download along with some sample pages from the rules from the site.

Northstar are handling the UK sales and have the rules and cards available for pre-order (£25 and £10 respectively or £30 together).  The pdf version can be ordered direct from Sam Mustafa.