Fuentes de Onoro

 

This weekend it was time for the 4th Rose Hill Wargaming Group annual wargame, and our 2nd in the Peninsular. We had over 2000 20mm figures and a playing surface of around 20' x 14', split into 3 tables. The rules were our in-house Steady Lads Steady, played on a 10cm grid, and whilst there are always tweaks to make everyone seemed to be getting along with them nicely.

Following the superhuman performance of the Spanish at Talavera we decided to start implementing some decent Command and Control rules, beyond our use of ADC cards. Two main changes were made:

• Instead of rolling dice each turn for initiative each side now had a set of playing cards and bid for the choice of initiative each turn - so they could have some attempt at control of the tempo of the game. After a few turns we made the bids completely secret, all they knew was whether they had won or lost, not how much the other side had bid. All worked really well.
• Each Brigade now had an orders block. One the face-up side it gave the type of order (eg stay, advance, move) so that the opposition could police its general behaviour, the face-down side showed essentially the level of aggression/commitment to the order (e.g. assault, defend at all costs etc). Order cards were needed to change orders, and there was a dice throw based on the Bde Comdr command rating, and the CinC could keep cards between turns so as to build up orders ready for a big change. Worked better than we could have hoped for.

Along with the use of blinds at the start for almost all troops there was far more of a sense of the CinC playing a CinC level game, whilst the rest of the players fought their Corps as instructed. 

In terms of how it played the British pulled out of Fuentes de Onoro before the French even got there! The French pushed for the gap between Poco Velho and Nave de Haver, but didn't want to get caught in a confused mess as they passed through the defile, but did get caught in a confused mess as the British extended a very thin red line all the way down the ridge to level with Nave de Haver. There was then essentially fighting along the whole length of the 20' table - a grand sight - and eventually the line provided a little too thin and the French not only turned the S flank but also split the line in two - which would effectively have caused 1st and 9th Divisions to surrender!

One of the really nice things was just there shear amount of space to manoeuvre in. We have about the same table area as Talavera but only about 2/3 rds the troops.

A great game, played in a great spirit by everyone. A few more tweaks for the rules and we'll hopefully be back for Albuera in 2025.

Photos in reverse order, so end of the game at the top!

STARTEX - Almost all the troops on blinds - some are dummies!

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Battalion Level Rules Megatest - WW2

 

In October/November I've started on my Battalion-level mega rules test for mechanised rules. I started with those rules aimed primarily at WW2. I set up the Cristot scenario from O Group and played it through with 3 different rules sets, plus my own. As previously noted many of the Coy level rules - see  https://newconverj.blogspot.com/p/rules-reviews.html - would also work at Bn, as will some of the Bde level ones in due course.

Since most of my time is being sucked up by the PhD I've just done this one omnibus, note form, post for the playthroughs. The Modern Battalion rules should be tested 1H24.

TLDR: O Group is the set to go for!

O Group

108pp soft-back, 4pp QRS

How It Played

- Germans deployed well fwd, with A/T gun trained on road and PzrSchrk team in wood by road.

- British went for a broad advance, but A Coy (W) hesitant at start.

- On E flank B Coy came under fire fm farm, laid smoke, moved across neighbouring field and into MG ambush. Never really recovered initiative as battle focussed on W

- Once A coy got act together advanced to wood line, but 3 Pl sent home by en fire. 2 Pl stormed the farm house, took flanking fire but go through, and after couple of rounds melee took farmhouse. 

- German I. Coy tried to counter but pl defeated by fire and pulled back to wood. Germans deploy res pl and MG team into wood. Firefight with farm whilst British move 1 Pl up and Carrier Pl to enfilade the wood

- Meantime Sherman/Cromwell tps move up, but hit by the A/T ambush. The 2nd troop lasts longer, Panther Pl deployed, fires and misses, and PzrShrck firing on flank gets the final kill

- German II Coy pushes fwd W of the road against minimal opposition, risking flanks of both British thrusts

- Germans bring down mortar fire on farm, but twice get OOA. British take several turns to get Fires, but finally bring down couple of turns fire on the woods, which combined with the MG fire finally starts to get KIAs and I Coy effectively wiped out. 

- Called time. ~Turn 10/16. Probably still in balance but unlikely that Brits would get 50% of Cristot in another 6 turns, esp with II Coy fwd

Pros

- really emphasises bn level

- simple die rolls (everything is 4+), rolls+DMs easily memorable

Cons

- shock->suppression->KIA takes time to build up - realistic (in some cases)?

- quite abstract rolls (but Bn)

- confusing terms (orders, unit etc)

- Index, but page numbers hidden in spine

- not 100% logical layout

Possible Improvements

- Smoke on any arty/mortar impact squares and no other firing into before or after

- 4+ for opportunity so 50:50?

- Coy morale?

- Use a Suppress markers once get to 3 shock for less clutter and to emphasise

- Redeploy of sp wpns?

- Use tanks as individuals not sections? Else put on larger bases to emphasise.

Overall

Really nice set of rules. Certainly preferred them to Chain of Command and think the way that the patrol bases works is really good and well worth stealing. The set to beat at this level? 9/10.

Jaws of the Dragon

 

Jaws of the Dragon was a megagame held in London by an academic colleague looking at a potential Chinese of Taiwan. The game postulated that the initial landings had gone well, but now a week or so later the Chinese are starting to get bogged down and the US and other nations are mobilising to come to Taiwan's aid.

Being a megagame the main part was the hall of teams playing each nation and having political discussions and issuing orders to their armed forces. I was in the LOCON team, playing the Chinese Army on Taiwan, and other tables were managing the air and sea battles. A high level set of hex-and-counter type rules were meant to control the combat but in the end we freestyled quite a bit, guided by the rules.

In terms of how the game went, we almost managed to break-through the main Taiwanese defence but the US Marines arrived just in time in order to hold the line. Our biggest issue though was that the US subs had effectively blockaded Taiwan from China, so there was no way we were going to get resupplied or reinforcements. Apparently there was not a surface ship form either side left on the high seas. The US did a strategic air strike against Chinese industrial centres - particularly chip fabs, and the Chinese responded with small nukes against a US base in Japan. The US thought about it, sacked their President, and decided not to respond (or the other way around!). The real winner was probably the Philippines which had now become the dominant Naval power in the region and was wielding a high degree of influence!

My first experience of this type of game and great fun!

The Hall of Nations!

Chinese High Command

The Sea/Subsea table

Our Land table

The Air Table

Close-up of the fighting

The sentiment meter was a key part of the game

Real-Time Waterloo at Valkryx

On Sunday I was honoured to be amongst the first group of players to play Valkyrx’s Real-Time Waterloo, played on 8 of their Intelligent Wargames Tables (IWT)

You can read my description of their IWT system in a previous blog post. Essentially each ~2m hex tables is composed of 150+ 15cm hexes, and each hex has an NFC reader and a multi-colour light. Units (typically representing Brigades for Napoleonics) are a goodly number of 10mm miniatures on a 10cm square base.  

The table in "add unit" mode, clearly showing the hex arrangement

To play a wargame you just move the bases on the table, the hexes light to show illegal moves of when you’ve gone too far, and then once moves are complete the computer automatically works out all the firing and melee and then flashes lights to tell you who’s been involved and what their strength is at the end of the round. Each table also has a small touch-screen which allows you to interrogate units in more detail and to change formation and to limber/unlimbers guns.

One of the touch-screen controllers showing unit data

I’ve played with both the fantasy system (GW style skirmishes) and the Napoleonic system before, but this was the first time that Valkyrx had tried to run such a large scale set-up and to run a whole historic battle in real-time. The real-time bit is something that Jon and Valkyrx has always been after, and in play each turn represents only 5 minutes of real battle, and players have 2 minutes per side to make their moves (IGOUGO) and then 1 minute for the computer to workout and display the results - so 5 minutes of real play should equal 5 minutes of historic “battle” time.

For this game we had about 4-5 players a side (essentially one per table/Corps), plus about half-a-dozen Valkyrx staff to help out and keep the tech running. There had been a test game about a month ago, that I’d missed, but Saturday was an “open house” session for everyone to practice with the tables and rules and to get a handle on how best to spend their 2 minutes effectively, and how to move the units so as to ensure that the NFC readers didn’t miss things or get confused. The scenario used a standard Waterloo Orbat, but we had free deployment as long as we didn’t go over our front line. The terrain was a reasonable representation of the battlefield, with all the main ridges marked by low hills (getting the NFC reader to work through them had been a real challenge), and all the main building complexes featured. No sign of streams or hedges and pretty billiard table like between the hills, but a good enough representation to have a sense of it being Waterloo. The table had though been laid out so that the Allied ridge was within about 3 hexes of the back of the table - so there was very little space for British manoeuvre, and no real option for a flanking attack by the French. The Prussians were assumed to be lurking the other side of the Bois de Paris at the far end of the table, and there were even rumours (that proved unfounded) that Grouchy might be around somewhere.

Come the day Juan (who I know from our Rose Hill games and Francis’ games) was Napoleon, I was Reille and given the left flank with orders to pin the British right, Martin was Lobau, keeping an eye out for the Prussians whilst also trying to sneak round the British left, whilst Theo had d’Erlon and Kellerman with the intention of smashing though the Allied line just at the E (ie French right) end of the ridge.

We just about started at the historic 11am, but a few glitches on the computer meant that it was probably half an hour or so before we really got into our stride. I sent a division or two under Ney to skirt around Hougoumont to threaten the Allied right, but although the whole of the end table was devoid of troops there were no VPs in the game so nothing to be gained by exiting off towards Brussels, so the Brits basically just sat on the end of the ridge, and the two of us faced off against each other for most of the game. Meanwhile the main fireworks were between Theo/d'Erlon and the left of the Allied line, with Martin/Lobau's cavalry sweeping round to join the fray. It took a lot of turns but eventually they managed to get a unit or two on the Allied table-edge - but the lack of depth meant that there was no real space to exploit and wrap the flank up.

The fighting on the Allied left

In the centre Juan led the Imperial Guard cavalry and the Old Guard into an assault straight up the Brussel's road and into the Allied centre. With ENDEX looming the Allied right finally pushed forward and my Corps with only 2 cavalry units to support it was at the mercy of 7+ Allied cavalry units - guns don't seem to do a lot to charging infantry or cavalry in the these rules! The Prussians did finally arrive,  so Lobau's troops mounted a hasty defence and the Chasseurs of the Guard were dispatched to rescue from a precarious position in La Belle Alliance!

A late computer glitch brought a slightly premature end to the game, but it's early days and this was a real test for the software (not least the somewhat chaotic movement of bases in the middle of the table) and we'd had many cracking hours gaming. 

Being able to play a big Napoleonic wargame so quickly and without recourse to any rule set was quite something. Several people commented on how easy the grid system made things - no arguments or gaming over distances - but I'm used to that anyway with my rules. Not having to look up rules or do calculations was the real time-saver. Whether I felt more like a Corps commander is perhaps debatable, playing with more players so as to get a proper 3-tier model would be wonderful, and I know that Jon wanted to enforce message passing etc to get more of that role-play element in - something for the future perhaps. It also made me wonder if I could do an SLS-FastPlay set of my rules to try and get somewhere close to a similar result. I think Jon said we did 35 turns in a day - and we could perhaps have managed 50-60+ if we (and the computer) all knew what we were doing! (60 turns = 300 minutes = 5 hrs elapsed and game time). That compares to c.10-12 turns a day both for SLS and Francis' games!!

We were all up for a rematch to give the ever improving software another test in a few weeks if Jon lays a game on, and I can't wait to see where Jon and his team take this over the coming months and years.

Here are a couple of videos showing what happens during the 1 minute "results" phase, initially the lights flash red/green to show who is in combat/firing, then hold steady green then red to show who has one or lost that round, and then steady orange for weakened, flashing orange for badly damaged, and red for removed. Although the tablets show per man level casualties you never really look at that but just learn to read the colours on the table.

The fighting on the Allied left flank

The fighting in the Centre by La Haie Sainte

NATO Division Commander - AAR

Last March  I bought a copy (well two copies)  of NATO Division Commander, which I'd lusted over back in the early 1980s. I managed to play the introductory scenario (focussed on Fire and Movement) relatively soon after, but it wasn't until July/August that I made a start on the first proper scenario - having reduced the rulebook to an 8 page QRS! Those first two turns didn't go too well, just so much to think of and so much clutter on the map that I struggled to get back to it, but dutifully left it out on my table, and even preserved the set-up when the tables went down for the Talavera game. 

With a backlog of "hobby" boardgames building up (Storming the Gap, Operation Dauntless), and a gap in figure wargaming whilst I painted up some ECW I decided to finish the 9 turn scenario. I started again last week, at about an hour a turn, and finally finished last night. By the end I was at about 30-40 min a turn (and remember the US only have ~ 9 fighting unit counters and the Soviets ~18!), partly because a may have been skipping less interesting activity but hopefully more because I'd got the QRS down to 2 pages.

The Soviets just managed a substantial victory (11VP vs a threshold of 10!), mainly by flowing round the US flanks and legging it for the exits hexes. A mad dash by 25TR and 28MR on Turn 8 from mid-board saw the whole of 7GTD exit the board. The US did lose 3 combat units (so ~ 33%) and most of their recce, and their HQs were looking very precarious by the end.

My play set-up, with the Mk2 PACs, one per side

So what were the good and bad points of the game (and bear in mind this is based on only 1 proper play):

The Good

• Fatigue - the accumulation of fatigue in a non-deterministic way is nice, and emphasises the need to units to take breaks rather than fighting 24hrs per day
• Intel- the need to get intel on a target before engaging with fires works really well, and how you allocate to sectors, and the slight bonus it gives you in combat (yet another table). Of course it would come into its own in blind play.
• CSPs - the general application of Arty, Engrs, EW and CAS works pretty well - particularly the way each point is available for each phase in most cases. But see below.
• The Night turn every 3rd turn again works well, restricting movement but making attacks marginally easier
• The idea of Modes is cracking, and how they change  movt/cbt/ISR vulnerability. But see below.
• The combat sequence is actually pretty straight forward, but just a bit to complex, and see below.

A 6 counter stack (just one unit plus modifiers!)

The Bad

• It takes a lot of CSP points (mainly EW/Air) to grow permanent OpInt to the point where OpInt gives good results. The US have a LOT of air so get there quite quickly, for the Soviets it's almost mid-game. Was Soviet ISR really that bad?
• Calling Fires "Counter-Battery" is just very confusing!
• Fires are very ineffective, especially with low INT (which would be OK if not for the point above). A whole Div Arty Group can fire on a single target and not do any real damage!
• The Mode change system with CPs is horrendous. The numbers asked for are deliberately high (ie beyond what you will have in a turn) so forces you onto the next table - why not just restructure that 2nd table. I replaced it with a move penalty, but may go for a simpler SP option if I play again as it forces you to use HQs properly.
• The need for 4 CRT tables, of which you consult 2 or 3 for each attack is several too many.
• Its not clear what the difference is between the 5MP Hasty Attack and bein gin Hasty Attack mode. 
• HQ's seem relatively immune from attack, which is odd given the emphasis on C2. That said I didn't play the active EW rules which can disable HQs, inhibiting their SP/CSPs and placing units OOC.
• Like any hex game it suffers from hex play - getting your attacking units just so around the target. That said at least its a differential CRT.
• Counter stacks can be tall - 6 counters! See photo. I think I'll push most onto a PAC/rosta next time.
• Overruns should be more vicious, -3 or -4 rather than -2. As it is even small 1 or 2 str units have 6 T/O but lose max of 2 per cbt even in an overrun so can hold up a huge force 

My Mark 1 PAC

Conclusion

Do I like the game enough to play another scenario as-is? Probably not. The issue to me is that it has all these great C2 innovations, then gives you a relatively complicated combat process, so you get two complex games for the price of one. And the board clutter really doesn't help.

What's next

So to "improve" the game, or at least the game experience there are a number of things I have in mind, some minor, some major. Roughly in order of size:

• Use PACs/rostas to track most unit values - just leave Mode on the table.
• Upgrade Fires
• Upgrade overruns
• Make HQs more vulnerable - keep them on the move (we used to move at least every 24 hrs at Bde).
• Simplify the combat tables
• Introduce a streamlined SP/mode change system

And then I need to start playing the EW and Ammo rules, and then the Commander rules!

It will be interesting to see how more modern games like Dauntless and Storming the Gap compare.

And that second copy? I might now finally find the time to put it on eBay (it's all sorted and ready) to recoup some of that initial outlay!

Finally, here's the turn-by-turn photos.

Initial setup

End Turn 1

End Turn 3

End Turn 4

End Turn 5

End Turn 6

End Turn 7 - first Soviets off

End Turn 8 - Soviets off the board building

End Turn 9 - Endex