Grasping for Your Potential (Charge)

When hosting a game using Basic Impetvs, one of the rules that regularly causes confusion is the rule on Potential Charge against skirmishers and light cavalry.  Part of the problem could be in my explanation!  I will try to explain...

What is a Potential Charge?

Before a charging unit strikes out toward a skirmisher or light cavalry target, the charging units announces whether it will attempt a "Normal Charge" or "Potential Charge".  The rules state that,

5.8.1 Charging troops that can evade
Units that want to charge CL or S can declare to move up to the
position where CL or S are (so called “Potential Charge”). The
Non-active Player then chooses to evade or not. If he evades,
the Unit of the Active Player must move at least to a position
where contact was possible without evasion. As this is not a
charge, the Unit, if armed with missile weapons, can also fire.
If the Movement Charge Bonus (5.6.1) is used and the contact
was avoided by an Evasion, the charging Unit ends in Disorder.

In practical terms, what does this mean?

Skirmisher is target of charge.

A Potential Charge lets a player declare a move that could end in contact forcing the target to choose and resolve its evade reaction before the charging unit commits to a full charge.  If the movement actually reaches the target through either a failed evasion test or a short evade, the Potential Charge becomes a normal charge and melee proceeds.  If evasion is successful, the charging unit simply completes a normal move without the possibility of entering into melee.

Why Use a Potential Charge?

The decision between choosing a Normal vs Potential Charge is not always straightforward.  There are several situations where a Potential Charge might be useful.  Three such situations are outlined below. 

Forcing Enemy Reactions
A Potential Charge compels a skirmisher or light cavalry target to resolve an evasion attempt or stand and accept the charge.  This forces the defender into a dilemma.  Evading might open flanks to other units while standing could expose the target to a full charge.  Often (although not guaranteed) skirmishers or light troops successfully evade resulting in a Potential Charge reverting to a normal move.  If driven off through a successful evasion, the change to a Normal move may offer favorable positioning without the risk of melee and/or pursuit.

Enabling Feints and Pressure
By declaring a Potential Charge, aggressive units like cavalry can threaten multiple targets, drawing out evasive maneuvers to create gaps in the enemy line for a decisive follow-up charge by another unit.  Successful evasion can leave retiring units potentially out of position allowing the feinting unit to pivot and support elsewhere during the same activation.

Improving Position
The mechanism allows control over movement endpoints.  If contact fails due to evasion, then the charging unit completes a normal move to an optimal spot.  Potential Charge control avoids overcommitment of a full (Normal) charge into empty space.  The ability to shoot and maneuver is preserved.  The advantage of this result is that Zones of Control (ZOC) pressure can be maintained without immediate melee.  Over several turns and constant threats, an enemy can be worn down in such fashion.

In larger battles, Potential Charges support coordinated tactics, such as using fast skirmishers to trigger reactions while heavy units reposition for a real assault.  Potential Charges provide tactical advantages by allowing the charging player to force the enemy to commit to a reaction before fully expending the unit's movement.  in this way, information and positioning is gained without risking a failed commitment.  This mechanism enables subtle maneuvers like feints to disrupt enemy plans, waste their activations, or set up subsequent real charges elsewhere on the battlefield.

When to Use

Potential Charge.  Declare a Potential Charge against fast, evasive troops where successful evasion would leave your unit overextended or in a poor position.  This mechanism lets the target resolve its evasion first, potentially turning your action into a normal move with options for follow-up shooting or repositioning.  This tactic works well when charging through potential obstacles or when multiple threats exist, enabling feints that disrupt enemy cohesion without wasting your unit's activation on a guaranteed miss.  This approach is ideal for light or mobile units probing for weaknesses in the line, preserving their flexibility for later turns.

Normal Charge.  Commit to a normal charge against stationary or slow-moving enemies, such as heavy foot in formation or against units where the risk of evasion is low and the distance can be reliably closed to trigger melee with full impetus dice.  Normal Charge is preferable when the attacking unit has superior speed or the target lacks reasonable evasion capabilities.  This ensures the charge bonus applies fully and pursuit opportunities arise if victorious.  In aggressive setups like cavalry against exposed flanks, this direct approach maximizes shock value without the hesitation of potential outcomes.

Key Differences
The Potential Charge provides information and safety against reactive foes but may limit the attacker's immediate combat impact if contact fails.  A Normal Charge, on the other hand, requires precise measurement and commitment for decisive results but risks failure if the target slips away.  Consider the attacker's impetus rating and the enemy's disorder status.  Potential Charge is tactically superior to a Normal Charge when facing evasive enemy units as it forces enemy commitment to evasion before the attacker's full movement is exhausted.  This contrasts with the Normal Charge's full commitment, which maximizes impetus bonuses but risks overextension against slippery foes.

Clear as mud?  I guess we will see in the next game!

1st Dragoon Guards

Following closely upon the heels of the Highlanders, a body of British cavalry trot out from the painting table.  These troopers muster out as the 1st Dragoon Guard Regiment.  Figures are Eureka Miniatures and came as part of a rare bulk buy of unpainted lead from eBay.  The lot had more British cavalry in mitres than I can likely field, but a bargain is a bargain, right?  Well, a bargain only if I paint and field them!  I need to do some research on all of the units that sported the mitre whether in battle or on parade.

As well-known by now, Eureka cavalry are my favorite for this period and almost all of my cavalry across all nations are comprised of Eureka figures.  At last count, (just tallied this morning) there are over 1,000 painted Eureka cavalrymen in the SYW collection.  Who knew and how did this happen?

Besides more Highlanders for the period, a regiment of British foot is working through the production line.  The British foot figures are the last of the Blue Moon British sculpts in The Lead Pile.  After these are finished, then it is on to bags and bags of Old Glory British.  Yes, bags and bags...

On the gaming front, games have been non-existent this week as I recover from injury.  Monday sees me take command of the Prussian Army in Reject Richard's next remote Koenig Krieg SYW battle on hexes.  With Russian dispositions unknown, I have little idea what to expect.  I am sure that the Russian commanders will complain that Frederick got the better ground!  Should be fun.  

This morning, it is back to the painting desk and then putting the finishing touches on the scenario for the upcoming Montebello game.

Highlanders!

While there has been a mention or two of expanding the current WAS/SYW project to include the Jacobite Rebellion, few actual Scots have worked through the painting queue.  Well, the exception was two regiments of Lowland infantry seen recently at Scope Creep?.  

Using an impressionistic approach to painting the tartan in 15mm was not as horrible as I first imagined.  Not that I enjoyed the experience so much, but it was not as bad as anticipated.  Given that experience, two more regiments of Highlanders are working through the production line before I have second thoughts.

Anyway, out from the painting desk today is a body of 23 Highlanders from Old Glory.  Serviceable figures and a step in the right direction to building up a Jacobite Army.

With recent games slowing to about one per week means that time at the painting desk has seen a slight pickup in meaningful painting sessions.  Finished units are beginning to congregate on top of the photo box from a variety of projects.  I have some catching up to do.

For my hosting duties, the next game on the horizon will take a look at the 1800 Battle of Montebello.  With an eye toward finally bringing the 1799 Russian Army out for maneuvers, the French and Austrians will get a warm-up at Montebello.  It has been a long time since my early Napoleonics have been out onto the table.  More details on that game as I work through preparations.  With Montebello only four days before Marengo, perhaps, Marengo will see a refight afterwards?

Why We Wargame: A Closer Look

In a previous post, I examined the top reasons for why we wargame as given by the survey results from Wargame, Soldiers, and Strategy's 2025 The Great Wargaming Survey (GWS).  As a refresher, the choices were:

• Creative and hobby aspects
• Fun and escapism
• Historical (or fictional background) interest
• Social connection and camaraderie
• Storytelling and narrative
• Strategic challenge and intellectual stimulation
• Training and education

When aggregating the Top 3 choices, the distributions of these top choices are illustrated in Figure 1 by counts and in Figure 2 by percentage of total.

Figure 1

Figure 2

While these results show, in aggregate, how survey respondents selected their Top 3, can the survey offer up any additional insight into why these choices were selected?  What if a handful of respondent traits and preferences are added into the mix?  Will these additional inputs offer any interesting insights over a simple accounting in a popularity contest?

As seen in a number of previous analyses, we turn to multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) for answers to these questions.

Trait Selection

From a long list of survey questions and respondent attributes from which to choose, only a handful of variables or traits are included to keep the graphical analysis manageable.  After consideration, the following traits are included in the study. 

First up is the main thesis.  That is, Why We Wargame.  Since those responses are lengthy, some recoding is necessary in order to not overcrowd the resulting MCA plot.  The recoding is as follows:

• Creative and hobby aspects - "Creativity"
• Fun and escapism - "Fun"
• Historical (or fictional background) interest - "Background"
• Social connection and camaraderie - "Social"
• Storytelling and narrative - "Storytelling"
• Strategic challenge and intellectual stimulation - "Challenge"
• Training and education - "Education"

The other traits (and responses) under consideration are:

Primary Interest with values of "Historical","Fantasy/Sci-Fi","Mixed".

Group Size with values of "0 (solo)","01-04","05-09","10-15","16+".

Game Venue with values of "At a game store","At home","At a club","Online".

Competitive Gamer with values of "Non-Competitive","Competitive".

MCA Plot

As a brief reminder, MCA graphs show patterns of association between categories (responses) of several categorical variables.  In this case, we examine the choices for Why We Wargame with the four traits of Primary Interest, Group Size, Game Venue, and Competitive Gamer.  Could other variables have been included?  Sure.  To keep the resulting plot readable, I limited the number of categorical variables to five.  The resulting MCA plot is shown in Figure 3. 

Figure 3

Figure 3 shows a readable spread of trait responses with just enough separation to see what is what graphically.  Does this plot provide a useful tool for interpreting these results and how to interpret this plot?  Let's give this plot a closer look.

Since Dimension 1 (horizontal, 83.9%) is the dominant contrast, points far right versus far left represent very different gaming contexts and preferences.  Dimension 2 (vertical, 8.24%) adds a weaker secondary contrast (top vs bottom) that refines, but does not overturn, the main story from Dimension 1.  To divine the main story, bifurcate the plot into a left (blue) and right (yellow) regions split down along the origin.  See Figure 4.

Figure 4

Ignoring the attributes clustering along the origin for now, in the blue region, the top choices for why we wargame include Background, Education, and Storytelling.  As Figure 4 shows, these choices are associated with gaming at home and either in small groups or solo.  This group tends to hold a primary interest in historical wargaming.

For the yellow highlighted side of the plot, the top reason for wargaming is the social aspect of the hobby.  Gamers on this side of the plot tend to focus on Fantasy/ Sci-Fi gaming in large groups at either game stores or clubs.  They tend toward competition as well. 

One interesting side effect of MCA is that results can lead to interpretable and meaningful labeling of the dimension.  For example, the classification of these categorical variables could suggest that the blue region denotes a reflective wargaming stance.  The yellow region could be labeled as having a sociable stance.  See Figure 5. 

Figure 5

Now, what about the attributes clustering along the origin?  Being close to the origin means these categories are relatively average or weakly discriminating.  These traits do not strongly define the main contrast between the blue and yellow regions.  Here, within the red rectangle, Fun, Creativity, and Challenge are common to both groups and styles of play.  Mixed, Non-Competitive, and Online traits are found in both groups as well.  See Figure 6.

Figure 6

What can be said about the results of the MCA analysis?  This exercise suggests that the choices we make for why we wargame can be associated to some of the traits that attract us to the hobby.  Of course, correlation is a two-way street.  If you are a solo historical wargamer, there is a tendency that storytelling, education, and historical background will hold more importance to why you wargame when compared against the Sociable group on the other side of the plot.

Remember that these results suggest relative tendencies.  Do these tendencies hold true for you?

Wargaming With Non-Wargamers

As alluded to in an earlier post, Nancy hosted one of the irregularly scheduled game days for her primary social group.  Since the event was to be held at our house, Nancy asked if I was interested in putting on a light wargame such as Commands & Colors to broaden the scope of games on offer.  She announced my participation and several showed an interest in giving this option a try.  As game day approached and the number of potential participants grew along with the number of tables needed, we decided to move my game downstairs into the game room and change from Commands & Colors to a tabletop miniatures game.  That way, I could get more than two players at a time into action.

Now, none of the potential participants had ever played a wargame.  One had played RPGs years ago.  Others had played chess and Risk.  This would present an interesting challenge.  I decided to bring my 28mm Sumerian armies out and play using Basic Impetvs on hexes.  On game day, I had three active players and one who was content to watch the action unfold from the sidelines.  Throughout the session, others would come down to have a look at the figures and see how the game was progressing.

Initial deployments

One challenge in bringing non-wargames into wargaming is introducing and explaining the many concepts unique to our gaming genre.  Every mechanism and concept that veteran wargamers accept as second nature and a "given" had to be explained and demonstrated in laymen's terms.  Not always as easy as the task may sound!  Anyway, after less than thirty minutes of overview, the players were tentatively ready to get stuck in.  One player would command the Red Army (red and green VBU dice) alone while the Blue Army (red and black VBU dice) would be split into two commands to accommodate two players.

Both sides began the approach to contact gingerly as players came to grips with maneuvering the different troop types.  I offered options available throughout to help their decision making.  After a few turns of cautious maneuvering, the two armies were poised within striking distance.  Let's see how the battle unfolded.

Armies slowly advance toward the center.

On the Left Wing, Red battle car rumbles forward and
 drives off an enemy massed bow unit but
not before the archers disorder the car as it closes.
Red battle car pursues and smashes into the Blue battle car.

View down the battle lines.

Red battle car rumbles into a large body of spear.
Spearmen are driven back in disorder.
The battle car does not pursue. 

In an action-packed turn, Red's Left Wing battle car pursues the enemy off table but is now essentially out of the fight.
In the foreground, Blue archers are driven off as Red's spearmen attacks.
Blue's battle car overruns enemy archers.
Players are getting a good grounding in how combat works! 

Blue Army's Right Wing (black VBU dice) wavers as most
of its command is either destroyed or reduced to '1' VBU.

The end is near...

With Blue Army's Right Wing teetering on collapse and the difference in the Army Breakpoint totals large, the battle is called in favor of the Red Army.  Game duration, after introductions, was about two-and-a-half hours of play.

How did this introduction to tabletop miniatures wargaming to non-wargamers turn out?  Players were all good sports as they took some lumps with the dice.  All three players said they would play again.  One exclaimed that he would play anything anytime!  I reckon this was a success.  As a bonus, I was invited to join one of the players for some billiards' session.  Now, I have not picked up a cue stick in thirty years or more.  This should be fun.  Perhaps I will receive a lesson in billiards for non-billiards players?

Assyrian Horse Archers

Looking back at the Painting Log, nearly one year has passed since the Biblical collections last saw some new recruits.  Where does the time go?

In one of my recent digs into The Lead Pile, I unearthed eight Wargames Foundry Assyrian horse archers.  There are only eight of them, why not push them into the painting queue and slide them over to the "Finished" side of the painting ledger?  Why not, indeed!

This is exactly what I managed to do!  Out from the painting desk today are eight Assyrian horse archers formed up into two stands.  Lovely figures.  Notice that these bases have been given the new and improved dice tray.  Having given the tray upgrade to the Sumerian collection, next time the table is clear, perhaps I can pull all of the Biblicals out of boxes and stick dice trays onto all of them?  There are a lot of stands in this collection.  An order to Warbases may be needed to complete this project but at least I can get a start.

I am not done with painting Biblicals or Ancients, quite yet though.  I see a number of units working their way through the painting queue.  After those, in-progress units make it out to the other side of the Painting Ledger, a return to painting 15mm horse & musket is in order.

Later today I introduce a handful of non-wargamers to "tabletop miniatures gaming" known to many of us as "wargaming."

Spanish Infantry for El Cid

Following up on a string of Reconquista games, it is likely no surprise that seeing these armies out on table prompted more figures to be pushed into the painting queue.  Today's offering is no exception to that tendency and, typically, the rule.

Out from the painting desk is a twelve-figure body of Spanish spearmen.  Figures are 28mm Crusader Miniatures.  Nice figures and really a joy to paint.  These fellas will be used to bolster the Spanish Army next time this collection takes to the field.  More Arab infantry are waiting in the ready-to-paint box but many more units are ahead in the queue.  A lot of variety is working its way through the production line.

On the gaming front, Monday saw me joining the Rejects in a remote game hosted by Richard.  Richard used Koenig Krieg played on a hex grid with tiles.  My Russian army faced the wily Ottomans in an 18th Century clash.  I leave it to Richard to tell the tale of this battle.  Once his story has been told, I will weigh in with my thoughts.  Richard always hosts an enjoyable game.  This one was no exception.

Uzaktan Savas (Russians in blue)

Later today sees me dropping into Matt's for the next installment of our long-running AWI campaign.  This time, my beleaguered Americans attempt to avert disaster at Paoli against the even more wily British.

Paoli Set up
(photo courtesy wargamesinthedungeon)

Beautiful table.  Too bad it will soon be covered in American casualties!