1600 – Something: Heroes of the Baggage Train

The first action of the Spring 1606 campaign move was, moving from east to west, the Japanese invasion of Kyushu. If this seems a little odd to you, a while ago the Koreans invaded Japan to prevent the Japanese from raising a fleet, and are still there. As the Japanese now have a fleet, they have decided to counterattack. A little dice rolling concluded that they landed safely and are attempting to move inland from a port.

The battlefield and deployment are shown above. The Koreans are to the right, with their baggage safely stowed behind the river. Mind you, fighting with your back to a river is not necessarily a good thing. In the centre foreground, incidentally, is a hill which everyone ignored. The Korean plan was to hold the centre, while the bow-armed troops nearest the camera tried to get on the flank of the advancing Japanese. If you look closely at the top right of the shot, you can see some Korean cavalry right over on their right. These were to work the other flank.

After the last outing, the Japanese learnt that their main power was in their heavy foot, and so these were deployed up front this time. They were supported by more heavy foot (ashigaru), and two sleeves of shot. The Japanese did not roll any cavalry (it is extra bows of horse, and they got bows). This was going to be a problem, it turned out. The Japanese baggage was deployed, reasonably enough, on the baseline.

As seen above, the plans developed. The Samurai foot are getting close to the Korean line, while the Korean flanks are starting to cause issues, particularly the cavalry of the Korean right. Four bases of Japanese, including the general, have been detached to contain them. Still, with the heavy foot about to make contact, what, really, could go wrong?

As you can see above, it did go a bit wrong. While the leftmost Samurai routed their musket-armed opponents easily, the overlap on the other side was recoiled by shot, and the Samurai only managed to push back the bowmen. The Samurai attacking the block of spear came off second best, and the Koreans easily survived the morale test. Meanwhile, the problem of the Korean cavalry on the Japanese left is not improving.

A few moves later, and it is going a little pear-shaped for the Japanese. In the centre, the semi-successful Samurai base did not manage to rout the bowmen, and was taken in flank by some musketeers led by the Korean general and destroyed. A counterattack in the centre by the Korean spears has routed another Samurai base. On the near flank, the Japanese shot are suffering a bit from Korean shooting, and in the top left corner of the picture, the Korean cavalry is looking like they are slipping past the Japanese to wreak havoc in the rear.

Well, the Japanese general decided that he was needed in the centre, and set off at high speed. You can see him on his own in the middle of the field, desperately hoping that he can get there before things get much worse. In fact, they just have because the Korean general has split the spear block and led one half against the hitherto successful Samurai by the wood, and the other half against the supporting ashigaru. Honours are even in the latter, but going the Korean’s way in the former. On the shooting flank nearest the camera, the Koreans are coming out on top. Meanwhile, in the Japanese rear, a serious situation is developing. The Japanese shot have managed to halt one of the Korean cavalry bases, but the other is now within striking distance of the Japanese baggage. Now, baggage bases are lost, of course, just as ordinary ones are, and count against morale. So this could be the routing of the Japanese army.

That it was not was due entirely to the Japanese baggage train. While the Koreans could not count  charge or advancing factors in combat against the train, it still looked bad. Baggage gets a factor of 0 (zero) in combat, cavalry gets 4. While the other baggage gave the base attacked a plus 1, even so, what would you have expected to happen?

Quite so. The Korean cavalry was bounced by the heroes of the baggage train. When the songs and ballads of the action are recorded, it will be these camp followers who are lauded, for they saved the army. After all, in the top left, you can see that another Samurai base has been routed, and the Japanese general has pulled the ashigaru base back. In fact, all the Japanese bases have been pulled back, because their morale went to fall back as a consequence of the morale check resulting from the latest Samurai base routing.

Now the Japanese general had a decision to make. He could fight on. After all, the Samurai base and ashigaru with him were still pretty potent as a fighting force, and the archers on the far side had one base of cavalry pinned. On the other hand, the Koreans could well launch the recoiled cavalry against the baggage again, and it was still highly likely to be lost, which may well rout the army. Also, with three bases lost against one, it could not really be said that he was winning the argument.

Reluctantly, then, the Japanese general ordered a withdrawal. As they had not been routed or even got a withdraw morale result, they could get off the field intact, and would now hunker down in the captured port, hoping for reinforcements or the Koreans simply to get bored and go home.

That was a somewhat unexpected result, I confess. I suspected that the Japanese, when they rolled no cavalry, might struggle a bit, but I did expect the Samurai bases to cut through the Korean infantry quickly. That it was not to be was a result of good Korean dice rolling, poor Japanese tempo rolling, and the fact that the Japanese general got distracted by the left flank when I could have done with him in the centre. Perhaps the dispositions were faulty. I should have deployed the baggage closer to the rear of the army so it could have been more easily protected.

Still, next up, the Mongols are raiding China, and have run into the regular army. Loads of cavalry, this time. Let’s see what happens.

1600 – Something: Winter of Discontent

 You might have noticed, if you have read any of this stuff, that I tend to whiffle over winter moves. There is a bit of accountancy going on in the background, of course, but really not much else. However, I have decided to slow down a bit and try to give some account of the Winter 1605 and Spring 1606 moves, mostly so I can try to get my own head around it.

There are a few changes to report. Firstly, the states of Golconda, Bihar, and Vijayanagar have been added to southern India. Hopefully, they will jazz up the world there a bit and enable a few more elephants to hit the table. Secondly, in the West, the states of Venice, Brandenburg, and Saxony have been added as active players. They were noted but passive before, to try to keep the number of states down to something manageable on a sheet of A4 paper, but now I have gone all high-tech and spreadsheet, that is not quite so much of a concern.

The major rule-change, however, regards countries in debt. Basically, each province occupied or owned yields 1 ducat in income. Each military force costs 1 ducat a year. However, replacements after a battle cost 1 ducat a base unless the forces involved were locally raised. The fact that some states have landed spectacularly in debt has, hitherto, been ignored. But now a rule has been introduced that each winter, an indebted government has to roll against its GOOS score to convince the bankers that it is still viable. In winter 1605, six nations met the criteria, of which three failed the GOOS roll: Sweden, Cambodia, and Laos.

The effect of a failure is that armed forces may mutiny, and provinces revolt. In the case of Laos, everyone remained loyal. Cambodia fumbled the GOOS roll, which led to the leader being assassinated as well as the army mutinying and defecting to Siam. Cambodia has now, at least for the moment, more or less disappeared as a separate entity in the game. The Swedes suffered mightily as well. Revolts occurred in Estonia and Gothland. The army and fleet in Gothland mutinied and disbanded, while the fleet in Finland defected to Muscovy. This left the Swedes with an army in Estonia and a train in Gothland. The Japanese, incidentally, criticaled their GOOS roll, and made an advantageous marriage and a diplomatic coup, both increasing their GOOS score. Good things can happen to debtors as well.

The winter random events also rolled up some interesting things. Barbary pirates attacked Portugal, and a rogue Burmese army attacked Vietnam. These actions were deferred until spring, as were the moves made by Spain, Bavaria, Vietnam, and China. The spring random events were also interesting, yielding a civil war in France and Mongol raids on the Chinese province of Shanxi.

Diplomatically, the French decided to subvert the Swedish army in Estonia. This was successful, and the Swedish Estonian force defected to Muscovy. This diplomatic coup could well have outraged opinion in France, because the civil war turned out to be between the armies in Burgundy and Languedoc, one Royalist and one pro-Spanish. To this mix was added a Spanish invasion of Burgundy. I’ll have to sort that one out later.

In other moves, the Austrians seized Dalmatia. This upset the Venetians (who had, as noted above, just become a player), but as their only force was a fleet in Venice, there was not much they could do about it. They appealed to the Ottomans to attack Austrian forces, but the Ottoman Emperor fell ill and was incapacitated. In the East, the Chinese providentially moved their army to Shanxi. The Japanese invaded Kyushu, which was lost last year to an invading Korean army, you might recall. The Vietnamese, subverted by Pugu, aimed to attack Siam, while the Siamese subverted the Laotians to attack Vietnam. This manoeuvring led the Vietnamese to invade Laos. Otherwise, in the west, the remaining Swedish forces in Gothland have to face a rebel army, while the Swedish army, which defected to Muscovy, still has to face a rebel force.

Of course, various other attempts at diplomacy were made, without making much impression on the overall situation, while the Bavarians converted their move card into a raise one, as they had no military forces. The Spanish raised a train in Franche Comte, and the Koreans raised an army in northern Korea.

Finally, another rule change, which came into effect in winter 1604 but had no impact then, is that all nations with an internal diplomacy score of 1 have to dice to see if a civil war breaks out. Most nations survived this, except Muscovy, which now has a rebel army marching on Muscovy itself. This is, in fact, for the second time, the civil strife in the country from the start of the campaign has never been resolved. Maybe this time.

So, there you have it. By my count, there are ten wargames to be had in spring 1605, ranging from the Japanese invasion of Kyushu to Barbary pirates raiding Portugal. As there are now 28 nations playing on the board, I suppose that this is a reasonable return for my effort. The winter and spring turns took about 2 hours to resolve, although this included adding the new nations to the tables as well. And they were, as I have tried to indicate above, rather complex moves with new rules implemented as well.

The Estimable Mrs P, each time I add rules and nations, worries that the campaign will bog down and I will get bored with it. I think it is a reasonable concern, but it has not happened yet, at least. I think the sheer variety of games (the campaign is, after all, nothing but a wargame generator in essence) keeps my attention. Remarkably, given the highly abstract nature of the campaign, some interesting scenarios are created as well, such as ill-fated but noble attacks against the odds, and, now, trying to work out what the Barbary pirates would look like.

I have seen it suggested that for each hour of effort in administration and planning, we should look for six hours of playing (I think this was in a role-playing game context). So, for two hours of administration, I am hoping for 12 hours of wargaming, and with 10 games on the table, I might well get that.

And so to the first game, moving from east to west. The Japanese are trying to land on Kyushu. Let battle commence!

War From Below

I suppose that it behoves us, every once in a while, as wargamers, to ponder what it is we are trying to do. I mean, war is a very human activity, and is, as far as we know, ubiquitous across history. The number of wargame periods, after all, should suggest that it is the case. Still, we do go for a sanitised version of conflict. As is frequently pointed out, there are no lead civilians who are murdered or raped, no lead widows and orphans, no looting, pillage, refugees, epidemics and so on.

Now, I sanitise my games as much as the next wargamer, possibly more. I do have an interest in more skirmish or role-playing types of games, but these tend to be more along the lines of ‘try to retrieve that vital document’ or ‘help the villagers to get their village ale back’, rather than ‘go into the caverns, kill all the monsters, and come back loaded with their possessions’. Perhaps that is a sign of maturity.

Still, occasionally an article gives me pause for thought. As those of you who follow the blog might have noticed, at present I am running a large, open-ended campaign called ‘1600 – Something’, part of which encompasses Europe. It looks very much like a set-up for the Thirty Years' War. Indeed, much of the background for the campaign came from books about that conflict. So my eye was arrested recently by an article in History Today: Fight and Flight (vol 76, 9, February 2026, p. 28-39). This is about a man called Hans Heberle, who was caught up in the TYW.

Hans lived near the Imperial city of Ulm, in Swabia, and started keeping a diary in 1628. The war came to Swabia in 1631, when Ulm signed an alliance with the Swedes. This lasted until 1635 when Ulm signed up to the Peace of Prague. I doubt if this was of much interest to Hans, however, as between 1631 and 1648 he and his family were forced to flee to Ulm 28 times. You read that correctly, he fled his home twenty-eight times in seventeen years.

As the article notes, the most common reason for leaving home in a hurry was the approach of soldiers. While we might think that the Swedes might have left the village of one of their allies alone, this was not the case. Most troops did not bother to check whether the people they were robbing were friends of enemies, and it was not worth hanging around to find out if they did.

Violence was not always the case, admittedly. Bavarians were quartered in the village in 1646, and Hans records no problems. On the other hand, the arrival of troops always came with the threat of robbery, violence, sexual assault, murder and extortion. The states could not control or supply the massive number of troops they fielded, over 100,000 in the 1630s. That is not to say the field armies were that size, of course. As with the English Civil War, garrisons made up the bulk of the troops, and local exactions made up the bulk of the problems for the civilian population.

There were other risks as well. Hans and his family fled to Ulm in 1636 because of famine. He lost two of his children at that time. Even Ulm was not safe, of course, and Hans lost his stepmother, sister and two half-sisters to plague in 1634-5, within three weeks of each other. Ulm had a population of about 19000 before the TYW. November 1634 saw 8,214 outsiders living there in addition. No wonder it was calculated that 15,000 people died from plague in 1635.

The question of where to flee to was a problem for the civilians, of course. Hans had two choices. Either he walked the 10 km to the walled town of Albeck, or the roughly 20 km to Ulm. Albeck was nearer but weaker and was besieged in the summer of 1635. Ulm was a much more powerful fortress and, as Hans’ village was a dependency of Ulm, he could get access much more easily than many, so it was to Ulm he went.

Refugees could weaken the defences of a town like Ulm. They could, and probably did, eat food stored for a siege, and so the time the town could resist was reduced. On the other hand, the refugees provided defensive manpower and were set to work strengthening the defences, as Hans did in 1634 after fleeing to Ulm after the Battle of Nordlingen. Nevertheless, Ulm’s resources were such that the shopkeepers stated in 1635 that the refugees (16 – 22,000) of them) would have to be expelled unless the city signed the Peace of Prague.

The supply of food was another concern. Ulm drew much of its supplies from its dependent villages, and the fields were untended while the villagers were sheltering in the city. This led, in 1636, to the city authorities sending the villagers home with seeds and instructions to restart agriculture. The war had many implications of which we are probably not aware.

Eventually, of course, the Peace of Westphalia was concluded. Hans was in Ulm at the time, having fled there to avoid French soldiers. The sense of relief was massive, and the propagation of the peace was a massive party. Hans returned home to try to rebuild a disrupted life.

As a wargamer, of course, I ignore all this. My excuse is that my armies are small, the states are rich, and the discipline is good. They pay their way, and none of my troops would so much as smile at a local young lady without marrying her first. To some extent, of course, I know that this is all a fiction, and, perhaps, it is good to be reminded of the nasty realities of war, even though I could just read the news and achieve the same.

Still, wargaming is a hobby, a fiction, a means of storytelling. I can take such liberties and not have a problem with that, so long as I am doing so consciously, not trying to avoid or ignore the unpleasant (to say the least) aspects of conflict.

1600 – Something: Luxembourg

 As my loyal reader may recall, the Autumn 1605 campaign turn is drawing to a close. The final action is the French invasion of Luxembourg. As the French failed their GOOS roll, they have to face a host of the Luxembourg’s finest, drawn at random.

The final Luxembourg army consisted of 4 bases of cavalry, 1 light horse, 5 shot and 2 pikes. Quite a handy little army, I thought. The French were a single army themselves, consisting of their regulars: 4 cavalry, 1 light horse, 4 shot and 3 pike. Interestingly evenly matched, I thought, with the Luxembourgers being slightly shot heavy, and the French with the pike.

The terrain rolling favoured the defenders, with a handy hill in the centre of their line to defend. Above, the Luxembourgers are to the left, the dark-coated infantry on the hill with half the cavalry behind. The rest of the cavalry is refused on their left with only the light horse forward, while the rest of the infantry is on the right, nearest the camera.

I confess, I was a little concerned about the position, mostly because the infantry on the hill is a newly painted bunch who have never been in action before. Still, the idea was to have a cavalry trap on the left of the hill, so any advancing French horse could be charged in flank and downhill by the central cavalry. The idea was similar on the right, with the hope of trapping the French infantry in a hail of musketry.

The plans developed, somewhat slowly, admittedly. As you can see above, the French right was delayed by a lack of tempo points. The left did get going, and the main French infantry force ran into the predicted musketry barrage, so much so that the general brought up some cavalry to support them. On the far side, you can see the light horse has been exchanging shots as well.

I should mention that before this game, the tactical rules were subject to some minor revisions, which revealed that in the previous version, the move of light horse had been increased to 3 base widths, so they can tank around the battlefield more quickly, and, crucially, get out of trouble a bit faster. We shall see how it works out.

There was a fair bit of cagey manoeuvring. As you can see above, the French got their right wing moving eventually, but their left has fallen back a bit to avoid being trapped. On the Luxembourg side, their right-wing infantry advanced to try to trap the left, but will now fall back a bit to try to avoid a clobbering by the pike-heavy French.

In the event, the French decided to bite the various bullets on offer. On their right, the first line of cavalry stuck their heads in the noose, while on the left, the infantry got moving again, aiming at the Luxembourg right. It all looked a bit risky, particularly for the cavalry with a juicy open flank begging.

In the event, the Luxembourg general took over and charged in with his left flank cavalry. His own base has, as you can see, severely damaged the French, but the other has, remarkably, been bounced. On the right, the infantry are near to clashing. In the centre, the French second line cavalry are in the firing line, while their second line infantry are arriving in support.

It got a bit busy. On the French right, the damaged cavalry fled, pursued by the Luxembourg general and base. On the near side, the Luxembourgers attacked, securing victory on one flank with the musketeers, but not on the rest. Nevertheless, French morale was starting to look wobbly, although they survived. The bounced Luxembourg cavalry, by the way, has been withdrawn in front of their camp on the left of the picture to recover.

In the foreground, you can see that the French right has emerged victorious in the infantry battle. Two Luxembourg bases are fleeting, while the other has retired to a hill for safety. On the French right, the cavalry has been charged by the rallied Luxembourgers and is coming off second best. The remaining Luxembourg cavalry is creeping forward, looking for a target.

The French general, however, was not going to lose another cavalry base if he could help it, and led a base of musketeers into the flank of the Luxembourg general’s horse. The horse fled, but the general survived. This really is the point where the French began to scent victory.

The Luxembourgers fought on, however, thinking that their temporary cavalry superiority might count. But the French soon organised an infantry attack on the front and flank of the hill. In spite of fierce resistance and the reserve musketeers moving across to prop the flank up, the game was pretty well up for the defenders.

The coup de grace came on the French left with the flanking attack up the hill. While the pike in the centre were driving back their opponents, down the hill, the loss of another base pushed the Luxembourg morale to fall back. This led to their cavalry and light horse retiring from the field, so at that point, they decided that further resistance was futile.

That was, as a wargame, a lot of fun and intriguing. The French had a tough nut to crack, I think, and managed to do it by not over-committing. I did toy, for example, with charging the French cavalry up the hill at the infantry there. It might have worked, particularly with the large numbers of musketeers stationed there. After all, the Muscovites managed a few games ago. But discretion, and the fact that the Luxembourgers gained the tempo and moved back, suggested otherwise. Patience told, in the end.

As for the wider picture, the French are now in possession of Luxembourg, which means that the Spanish Road is in peril. I am not sure how the Spanish will respond. They are fairly thinly spread along the frontier. But the next campaign move is winter 1605, so I will have to wait until spring to find out.

1600 – Something: The Unlucky Lucky Muscovites

As my loyal reader will know, I am currently wargaming my way through the Autumn 1605 move of the\ campaign. This has now rolled around (moving east to west) to the Muscovites defending Courland against a Danish Expeditionary Force. As you might recall, if you were really concentrating, there is a bit of history here, the Muscovites having routed a previous Danish force supporting the Courlanders.

The Danes have control of the Baltic, and so, with a move card, it was a simple matter for the army from Jutland to be switched to Courland, and a few dice rolls indicated that the landing was unopposed, but the Courlanders did not rally to the cause of the Danes. Presumably, they wanted to wait and see what happened next. After all, the Danish force sent to support them did not cover itself in glory.

The Muscovites may well have been happier with the terrain rolled for this encounter. Above, they are to the left, Cossacks and cavalry to the fore. The remaining foot is on the lower slopes of a hill in front of the camp, with a reserve of streltsi in the rear. The Danes had some more head scratching to do. While the ford would minimise disruption crossing the stream, doing so in the face of the Muscovite cavalry would be difficult.

A few moves in, and the Danes are crossing the stream in numbers. The infantry on the road is across, and getting organised and deployed. On the far side, the cavalry is mostly across and rallying. The only fly in the ointment so far is that the second regiment of foot has been mostly delayed at the stream. On the other hand, the Muscovites are too far away to really bother about at present.

A few moves later, and things are heating up. On the near side, the Danish second infantry regiment is reluctantly crossing the stream, while the first is deployed. The cavalry which crossed the ford is now aiming for the Danish right wing, and has become a significant cavalry combat. The two bases of Danish cavalry which had crossed the stream (the third is still rallying), decided to charge, rather than be charged, even though they were outnumbered. Initially, they had great success, pushing back and shaking the Muscovites, but, just as I thought that the Muscovite baggage was in peril, both bases were bounced. Hence, the disorganisation of both sides.

As you can also see, I had decided that the Muscovite foot on the hill would be more useful on their right, and they were moving towards it. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake on my part, as staying put on the hill might have been a better bet. The other thing to note is a misfortune for the Muscovites after their fluky combat dice rolls. I had to make a general’s risk roll, as the general’s base had been recoiled and shaken. He needed 1-4 on a d6 to survive. Of course, I rolled a 5. Oops.

Surprisingly, the Muscovites did not fall apart. On their right, nearest the camera, the cavalry charged. While one base was halted on the road by musket fire, the other base of muskets was destroyed, and the pike sent reeling back. On the far side, the Danish general is attempting to take some advantage from the cavalry melee, but the Muscovites have started to rally as well, so he might be a little late.

It got a bit complicated, and I think I missed a photograph. As you can see above, things have changed quite a bit. The third Muscovite cavalry base on their left charged the Danish cavalry by the stream and routed them, only to fall victim to the Danish general and his base who were relishing having just routed another of the Muscovite bases, seen fleeing top left. On the right, the hitherto successful Muscovite cavalry fighting the Danish pike has been routed by a flank charge by Danish cavalry sent from the other flank, who are pursuing at the bottom of the picture. Meanwhile, the Muscovite foot have deployed, just at the foot of the hill.

Both sides had to make morale rolls at this point. The Danes were three bases down and were deemed to be at the ‘waver’ level. The Muscovites, two bases and a general down, rolled a fallback result, which is why there is a big gap between them and the Danes. Another charge disposed of another Muscovite cavalry base, if you look closely, the Muscovite camp is now under threat from marauding Danish cavalry. Muscovite morale went to withdraw, and discretion was the better part of valour.

Strategically, the Muscovites will have to withdraw from Courland, and I suspect that the losses will cause the state to plunge even deeper into debt. The Danes, with the customs revenue from the Sound, are better off financially. And so will probably hold Courland, along with their enclave on the Baltic coast of Poland.

In the game, I think the Muscovites were both lucky and unlucky (hence the title). They were unlucky to lose the general (again) but fortunate to beat off the Danish cavalry. I really was having visions of the Danes looting the camp before the game was half-finished. The Muscovites continued to roll well, in fact, nearly overwhelming a base of pike with a frontal attack, which is no mean feat. In fact, they would have succeeded had the Danish cavalry not intervened.

For the Danes, the stream was a problem, obviously, but the ford certainly helped them get across with minimal disruption. The second line cavalry and infantry, crossing directly, did not fare as well. Perhaps I should simply have fed more troops, particularly the second infantry regiment, across the ford.

Still, while this goes down as another Muscovite defeat, it was a close-run thing. Mind you, the Muscovites are now looking for net another general. What do you think of the job advert: ‘Wanted, a general. Short-term contract’?

The Score

I have been reading, very slowly (due to other commitments), The Score, by C Thi Nguyen. It is certainly worthy of attention as a wargamer, let alone as a citizen of the 21st-century world. If you would like a bit of an introduction, Nguyen was on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week program a bit ago, and you can still listen to it here.

Wargaming is not Nguyen’s main point in writing the book, of course. The main aim is how our lives are taken over and, ultimately, controlled by numbers, usually imposed upon us by parties beyond our control. Our values, he maintains, are captured by these. For example, Facebook is dominated by how many ‘likes’ you get, and how many ‘followers’ you can claim. Instead of using it as a medium for communicating with other people, you slowly become captured by the numbers, and start writing posts which will maximise your number of likes, keep and grow your camp of followers, and so on.

This value capture works more seriously (perhaps) in other areas of life. For example, the assessment of schools is (still) given by a single word or phrase in England, despite its devastating potential. As Nyugren observes, this sort of thing makes, in principle, it easy to compare schools. Thus, as a parent, you choose the school for your child that comes with the highest rank. The rank, of course, abstracts from all the context of a particular school. It might, for example, be a wonderful school for a certain sort of urban child who, simply, would not fit into a normal academic environment. But that context is ignored.

Nguyen uses a lot of examples from games. He observes that games hold a sort of middle ground in our lives. They have rules, scores, and assessments, but they also allow us to be creative. A simple example is of soccer. The rule is (among others, of course) that you cannot touch the ball. This forces you to do other things, to get creative with feet and head. The rules force creativity.

Nguyen does not specifically address wargaming, but he does say some things about role-playing games. He observes, for example, that actually, role-playing games, or rather the players, need rules of some description. Apparently, if the players are left rule-less, the stories become staid and repetitive. It is the dice rolling, the attempt to make a score, which leads to the storytelling. The failure to achieve something forces us into creativity, by making account for the unexpected.

I do not think it is too much of a stretch to apply this to historical wargaming. We can, if we so desire, re-fight Waterloo every week, but probably, most of us would eventually find that a bit boring. That might be so even if the results, as a consequence of dice rolling, would be different each time, at least slightly. But we can start imagining the what-ifs. ‘What if Ney had not gone so far?’ ‘What if Hougomont had held out less long?’ ‘What if the Prussians were delayed?’ Some of these things might give us greater insight into the outcome, but would we still be re-fighting Waterloo?

By giving us different outcomes within an overall envelope of possibility, our imagination and creativity are put to the test. Perhaps it is this that we risk outsourcing to artificial intelligence if we start using it to create our scenarios and campaigns. Nguyen observes, as do other commentators, that we are heading in a direction that leads to us outsourcing almost all our decision-making. This is done by reducing our choices, essentially, to numbers, even if they are probabilities in a large language model, and relying on the computer to decide for us.

Of course, this is what we do when we write rules. In my case, I can ponder how many points in combat a charging cavalry unit should get compared to, for example, a base of dispersed skirmishers. We abstract away the details of all the encounters we are aware of between such troops and come up with an answer. Then, through various factors,, such as terrain, training, and morale, we add context back in. That is pretty much how the wargaming world works, I think, whatever rules and mechanisms we might use.

The scoring system in a game is, however, important. Nguyen observes that a lot of game designers start with the scoring system. This conditions the players, and what they can and choose to do in order to win, whatever winning might mean (he has some interesting examples). I have encountered this in the difference between one-off and campaign games. In the latter, keeping your force in being might be more important, a bigger win, than dying gloriously but vainly on the battlefield. Sometimes, in my campaign games, it is simply better to march away. What it means to ‘win’ has changed.

Incidentally, on that matter, I have just been reading an interesting article in History Today on the run-up to the disaster (for the Crusaders) of the Horns of Hattin. A few years earlier, they had gathered a large force and seen Saladin off without a battle. But this was regarded as cowardice. So in a similar situation, an advance to battle was ordered. We know how well that worked, but the point here is that in real life, the goal was altered, and not being thought a coward was placed above winning.

The above might be a little less than coherent as an argument. My excuse is that it is a very rich book and I am only halfway through it. But it has made me think about what sort of goals we set in wargames, and how these affect the ways that we might play the game. Indeed, the nations in 1600-Something do have strategic aims which, on occasion, do suggest courses of action. So the French, for example, want to break the Spanish Road, and are piling up forces on the frontier to that end. But each individual battle is directed to attempting to obtain that strategic outcome, rather than just destroying the enemy.

A fair bit to ponder then, even leaving aside the complaints about how big businesses and government go about evaluating everything and controlling outcomes. I shall, quite probably, return to the subject.

1600 – Something: Mongol Swings and Roundabouts

The second wargame of the Autumn 1605 move was between Mongol tribes. The dice rolling indicated that the Mongol activity reported here continued. The White and Black Sheep tribes amalgamated, and the White Sheep commander, having won the card game, entered the fray as White Sheep. Their opponents were another tribe of Mongols, known, for reasons of convenience, as the Green Sheep. I am not aware that there is a type of sheep which is green, but the name followed from the dice colours.

The setup is above, with the defenders, the Green Sheep, to the left. It is harder to see, but the centre(ish) of the field consists of a line of hills. The Green Sheep militia is on the near side, the Green Sheep heavy cavalry and skirmishers are on the hill in the middle, with their light cavalry in front of them, while the rest of the heavy cavalry hold the hill on the far side.

From this, you can deduce that in their card draw for forces, the Green Sheep drew three Kings, two of which were militia, and the third a base of skirmishers. This gave me some head scratching, as you can imagine. After all, this was supposed to be a cavalry battle. A bit like armies in the Western Desert in the 1940s, once the tanks were gone, the infantry had to surrender. With this lot, I suspect it is much the same with the cavalry. And, having fewer bases makes the lack of cavalry more likely.

The White Sheep commander was almost equally unhappy. He found himself facing enemies on all three hills, and while he did have an encouraging numerical advantage in both light and heavy cavalry, assaulting uphill is, well, uphill work. The plan was to mask the centre of the Green Sheep position with the light cavalry, and hopefully overwhelm their lights, while taking the hills on the flanks with the cavalry. The then triumphant heavies could turn in and crush the centre. The general would command the left wing to make sure things got moving in the right direction.

The plans slowly lumbered into life, both sides affected by a tempo point famine. In the centre, the light cavalry are clashing, ineffectively so far. On the Green Sheep left, far side, the White Sheep heavies are looming, while on the near side, the White Sheep cavalry are ascending the hill. At this point, the Green Sheep commander realised that his militia would need a bit of help, and he is heading there himself with reinforcements.

The whole battlefield suddenly got busy. In the centre, the light cavalry exchanged shots, to the advantage, as you can see, of the Green Sheep. On the far side, however, the White Sheep cavalry, although hampered by the hill, has routed their opponents, and the Green Sheep left is now wide open. On the right, however, a bit of manoeuvring has led to the militia falling back off the hill, while the Green Sheep general and his cavalry have charged into the Whites and are causing damage.

Some fluky combat dice rolling later, and the Green Sheep cavalry have been repelled, falling into confusion as thwarted chargers do. The White Sheep cavalry, however, is in no position to take advantage, being shaken themselves. In the centre, the outnumbered Green Sheep light cavalry are continuing to chip away at their counterparts.

Both sides needed to reorganise. The Green Sheep pulled back the militia into the fields in the foreground, and the disorganised cavalry back to regroup. The White Sheep cavalry recovered from their shaken status remarkably quickly and crossed the hill, charging their counterparts down I, as seen above. This activity starved the right wing of tempo, however, and the exploitation of the victory there has barely started. In the centre, however, the Green Sheep light cavalry has scored a second success, routing another White Sheep base.

There were more highly unusual combat rolls. Firstly, the Green Sheep general, in spite of the status of his base, managed to recoil his opponents, although the other base was lost, as seen. Secondly, a base of Green Sheep light cavalry from the hill moved down it and took the third White Sheep cavalry base in flank. This base was, at the time, supporting the general’s one in close combat and could not recoil, so it was lost when the light cavalry made a good roll. Nevertheless, the overall situation for the Green Sheep was poor.

They were saved, remarkably, by one of the militia units. These jumped the wall of the enclosure and attacked the disordered White Sheep cavalry in flank, while the general’s base supported them as best they could from the front. The militia is, in fact, also doubly terrain shaken from crossing the linear obstacle, but still rolled sufficiently well to recoil the White Sheep cavalry, which, with a base to their front, meant they were removed.

At this point, the White Sheep had lost 4 bases, with the general about to leave the table in pursuit of the routed enemy, while the Green Sheep had lost 3. Both sides were, in fact, at ‘fall back’ morale status, so I decided to call it a draw.

That was an interesting wargame. Like the last time Mongols clashed, there was no clear winner; in fact, the result was even less clear-cut this time. I kind of expect cavalry actions to be fast and furious, quick games and fairly decisive. These cavalry versus cavalry contests have been anything but, both fairly sedate, positional and close. Mind you, in this wargame, some of the combat rolls where shaken bases go on to bounce their charging opponents have been unusual, but it happened to both sides, so I cannot claim any bias.

On the other hand, I still have not painted any further Mongols. By the time I get to them, Mongolistan will probably be quiet for many campaign turns. But the next action up is the Danes against the Muscovites. It will be nice to see a few pikes again.