Warcon 2014: Musket & Pike Edgehill

I kicked off this years' Warcon with a game of Musket & Pike Battle Series. The scenario was the battle of Edgehill from the "This accursed civil war" set. Hex & Counter games are not exactly ideal blog fodder so I'll be brief. The game series is excellent and I recommend it fully to wargamers though.

The game after the frist turn. The royalists under king Charles are advancing towards the lines of the parliamentarists. The royalist cavalry on the right engage the skirmishers sent to harry them and draw in some of the parliamentarist cavalry waiting in reserve.

Cavalry clash as the battle lines draw closer.

After the cavalry engagement, king Charles rides to the scene to rally his troops. He underestimates the speed of the parliamentarist cavalry however, and is caught by their charge. The king is slain in the ensuing mayhem, what a tragic day!

The royalists, shocked by the loss of their king lose the initiative and the parliamentarists manage to charge their line with their infantry

The situation becomes chaotic and casualties are high on both sides.

In the end, only tatters of both armies are still in fighting order, but the parliamentarists have managed to seize victory (and would have even without the massive VP score from the slain king)

It was an interesting scenario as the armies were quite symmetric and even. I think anything may happen in this scenario and it would probably work well as a tutorial game for M&P as there are virtually no deviations from the basic series rulebook. Tactically there were quite a few choices to be made. I definitely had no clue on how to use the skirmishing troops to their potential and they were easy prey for enemy cavalry. I got a lucky prey in taking out the king and managed to charge the enemy with my infantry and gain momentum bonuses. It was a close cut thing however, and I had some luck with my dice.

Stay tuned, I still have a Here I stand game to report as well as Signal Close Action!

Musket & Pike: Lützen 1632

Some musket & pike action for today. I was teaching the system to a newbie but still managed to.. I mean lost like a good mentor should! We played one of the most famous battles of the 30 years war, Lützen 1632. Its the battle were Gustav Adolf the great died.  We had to call the game after 6 hours or so, but I think the situation was pretty clear. I played the Imperial side and both my flanks were all but gone at that point so defeat was quite certain. Adolf died like he did historically, though.

I have to wonder. Most battles in the M&P series are quite long compared to how many turns we end up playing. Are we too eager to engage and get the battle over with when the result starts to be clear on turn 6/22?

Commentary embedded in the images.

Warcon 2012: ASL, Musket&Pike and Force on Force

Warcon, a small con held under the wing of the Finnish boardgames association was held in the city of Tampere this year, and I was able to attend for one day instead of the full weekend. I wasn't disappointed though as I got all the games on my wishlist played.

Third Reich being played at Warcon. It seems Germany again makes the mistake of letting political leaders determine military strategy.

First I played a pre-con game of ASL with a local player at his apartment. Nearly all the games of ASL I've played have been against the same opponent I've learned the rules with, so there were some fundamental errors we had made in our interpretation of the rules, it seems. Anyway, the scenario was D - Hedgehog of Piepsk. The scenario pits an overwhelming horde of Soviet conscripts against a few German squads hidden in a village. The Germans are badly outnumbered but have off-board artillery and deploy hidden. I won the match pretty much by marching over the defenders with conscripts and engaging them in melee. Didn't seem very balanced but I had a good time and had a chance to repair some falsely learned rules. Here's some pictures with commentary in the images:

I said goodbye to my opponent and went to the Warcon venue. The previous years have seen the event held in a cramped space in Helsinki with little to none parking space and expensive lodging. This years' event was held in Tampere at a cafeteria of the local stadium and I found it had plenty of playing space and good parking. You could also sleep on the floor there if on a tight budget. An excellent choice! I hope the event will be organized there for years to come.

Napoleon's triumph.

An excellent looking Lovecraftian skirmish game.

Investigators!

Cultists!

Monsters!

A gloomy atmosphere in the countryside of New England.

My second game for the day was a prearranged Musket&Pike match. We played the battle of Breitenfeld, which was the largest battle of the 30 years war. I've only played small games before and this one was way bigger than the ones before. The Musket&Pike system scales well however, and moving tens of thousands of men was quite quick once you decided what to do with them. Commentary embedded in the pictures again, I think the situation is easier to make out that way.

 In a nutshell the Swedish attacked on the right half of the field with good timing and rolls. The Catholics had a hard time defending and their cavalry all but melted away. My opponent suffered from rotten rolls, but he could have pressed against the Saxon wing of the Swedish army more aggressively, as they were poor quality troops and collapsed as soon as he started attacking them. We determined the game was already decided at the end of turn 5 of 12, and called it a day. The Catholics had lost several units more than the Swedes, as well as their army commander. The Catholics still had a chance I think, but it would have been an uphill struggle, especially with practically no way of preventing the Swedes from rolling over their artillery (very costly in VP's).

Casualties of the day.

My last game for the day was a game of Force on Force. I've heard a lot of good things about the rules and I was interested to try them out. Luckily the local wargamers brought a demo game to the event and had time to play it with me.

The scenario was set during a fictional escalation of Cold War hostilities in Europe. Soviet forces attack a small village held by Dutch troops. Both sides had about a platoon of troops and the Soviets also had a platoon of armored troop transports. The goal of the Soviets was to take the crossroads and prevent the defenders from getting away.

Opening setup. Soviets enter from the roads to the top, bottom and right of this image. Dutch troops hold the buildings.

The Soviets advance in the cover of the woods.

Dutch snipers open fire on the Soviet squad on the road.

The APC's open fire on the building but are all but destroyed themselves by the return fire.

A firefight ensues on the streets. The Dutch evacuate the buildings and the Soviets occupy the vacated territory.

Situation at the end. The APC platoon is destroyed and the Soviet forces have suffered casualties while taking the crossroads. All Dutch units are incapacitated.

The game was quick to learn and fast to play, exactly what I like in a miniatures game. The rules we used were quite basic though, and I didn't see what "it" was that makes the rules so highly thought of. Probably I'd need a game with the advanced stuff to become a convert, but it was great fun nonetheless!

At that point the clock was past 3 AM, and I had to drive to a wedding in Jyväskylä the next day, so I called it a night. I had a great day of games and got plenty of ideas for future projects.

Red Winter in progress as I prepare to leave in the morning.

Some Musket & Pike and a side project

I got a chance to play a game of the excellent Musket & Pike Battle Series again. This time it was the Battle of Nyborg, 1659. The Danes and the Swedes are at each others throats again. The Swedes were on defence with good morale troops, but the Danes had the numbers.

The opening setup. The Danes outnumber the Swedes but are restricted by some quarreling in the command chain. The Swedes have good ground and superior morale.

The Danes move closer but the hedges make retaining formations difficult. The cavalry wings on the left clash, leaving the usual chaos in their wake (Two equal cavalry wings tend to erase each other off the field in this game).

The Danes attack the Swedish line but are repulsed at every turn. The terrain makes it difficult to exploit numerical superiority, and the Swedish combination of superior morale and advantageous ground makes for a too hard a nut to crack this time.

I didn't remember to take more photos as the game ended up being rather quick. I played the Danes and was unable to find a weakness in the Swedish defense. Even though my troops were recovering their shaken formation in easy charge range of the Swedish cavalry, he would not be baited from his position. It really is a tough puzzle to solve for the Danes. Better luck next time, I suppose.

Next, here's a picture of the hill system I'm working on at the moment:

I've successfully used.. whatsitsname.. the mattress foam thing for hills before. Until now, I've had to cut each hill according to scenario design every time, but now I thought of a better idea. I've started to replace the pre-cut hills with foam hexes, 6 inces across. I lay them out to form a mass closely resembling the hill needed, tape them down using painters tape, and then just lay the gaming mat on top. It worked just fine, and I doubt you noticed any unsightly hex angles poking out of the terrain in the Antietam report!

Last, I've begun building a 1/700 scale Airfix Titanic. My sister usually gets me something rather uninspired like cologne or a pair of boxers as birthday or christmas gifts. This time she let my 7 year old nephew choose a gift for me for my birthday last summer, and I'm quite pleased. He understands!

Anyway, I better finish the model before my nephew forgets he ever got it for me. I haven't done models such as this in ages, and the smell of the poly cement gives me flashbacks to my teenage days and badly painted Spitfire kits.

Musket & Pike: Halmstad 1676

Yesterday I got another chance to play some musket & pike with my Nothing gained but glory -set. We played the battle of Halmstad, fought between the Danish and the Swedish. The Danish have been retreating from the Swedish but to their surprise are caught between a river and the Swedish army.

In our scenario, the Danish player had three options: Either he could carry on with the evacuation across the bridge and try to get as many of his troops off the field as possible, scoring him victory points, or he could stand and fight a defensive battle, or he could charge. He chose the third option and decided that attack was the best defense. Our game was quick, and is best summed up as a sequence of wing activations.

First turn:

- The Swedish center wing advances across a minor stream and stops to redress their line.
- The Danish Center advances towards the Swedish center.
- The Swedish right move in closer to the Danes but keep their distance
- The Danish right moves forward towards the stream the Swedish center stumbled on. The Swedish left cavalry does a couple of intercepts but loses one unit of cavalry and another is repulsed. The Danish quickly rally their troops and settle on the far bank of the stream.
- The Swedish left settles to reforming their troops.
- The Danish left wing advances cautiously.

The second turn:

- The Swedish start off by continuing to reform their center. They have been under rally orders last turn but now make the change to make ready as the Danish advance.

The situation after the first activation of the second turn.

- The Danish left cavalry wing advances into an awkward position at the bottom of the hill to support the infantry attack. They do not ascend the hill because they would suffer a formation hit and would become visible to Swedish interceptors.
- The Swedish left cavalry wing fails to order a charge and are left looking at the Danish across the stream.
- The Danish center orders an all out charge on the Swedish center. The Swedish use salvo fire across the line but fail to reduce the morale in all but one attacker. There are casualties in nearly every enemy group however, and some reduction in formation state. In close combat, the right side of the Swedish infantry repulse the chargers and hold their ground in disorder while the left side of the wing is forced to give ground. Morale broken results are suffered on both sides and formations are in a poor state.
- The Swedish right cavalry wing now has a sweet opportunity to charge the disordered Danish center, since the Danish cavalry wing cannot see them and interfere. The charge hits home and routs several of the Danish infantry units but also leaves the Swedish cavalry with their formation broken and pistols spent in true Musket & Pike fashion. This charge pretty much decides the game in the end.
- The Danish right cavalry wing scrambles to plug the gap in the center and set up to countercharge the Swedish.

The situation at the beginning of the third turn.

 The third turn:

-The Danish seize the initiative and prepare to charge the disordered Swedish cavalry but the Swedish left cavalry wing beyond the stream pre-empt them and charge their flank, only to fail miserably and be driven back.
-The Danish cavalry resumes their activation, changes their orders to charge and charge the Swedish cavalry and parts of the Swedish infantry line in order to turn back the tide of battle. This attack fails on all fronts, leaving the Danish in poor condition and in range of the Swedish infantry.

At this point we paused to analyze the situation. The Swedish line was suffering from a bad state of formation and lack of coherency, but they had suffered little in the way of casualties. The Danish had lost many units and were poised to lose many more. Even though they had one cavalry wing still intact and in the position to conduct a successful charge, the rest of the Danes had been shattered and we decided to call it a night, as there wasn't much left to do for the Swedes but mop up.

The situation at the end.

A brief, but enjoyable game. Were still getting to grips with the series rules but gameplay is getting more fluid. We still have some problems with what a unit can and cannot do under certain orders. I found myself undoing charges which we had already rolled on because I remembered my wing was under make ready orders and thus unable to charge the enemy. Also, I don't quite get the most out of my Army Commander as I forget to use his considerable mobility and rally abilities to the fullest.

My opponent lost but I suppose he enjoyed himself as he immediately went shopping for Under the Lily Banners after the game. I eased his wargame hoarders' burden by buying Hammer of the Scots off of him :)