Sunday, April 20, 2025

On Deck, British Cavalry

Last week saw a complete bust at the gaming table.  One game was cancelled due to illness (not mine!), and a second game scrapped due to a Zoom server outage.  This was the first time that Zoom technical issues caused a game cancellation.  This event was surprising after five years of no interruptions.  I will give Zoom this one, this time.  With my annual contract coming due, this could have been an inopportune time for system failure.  
Last week also saw a pick-up in activity in a PBEM SYW campaign that had fallen silent for several weeks.  We ready ourselves for a big battle at Prague.  Prussians have a tough task of dislodging the Austrian Army from their White Mountain defenses. 
The week ahead looks to see the game schedule back on the rails with games slated for Wednesday (make-up game from last week's Zoom outage) and Thursday.  Thursday sees a playtest of Tony's WSS rules.  Beautiful 25mm figures played on a hex grid with a lineage of Commands & Colors, what is not to like?  I may even get a call to join into a F2F gaming session at point in the week if I am lucky.
What the gaming lull allowed was a couple of meaningful painting sessions.  Seeing an increase of effort at the painting desk was a needed boost.  With other hobby activities taking much of my time, painting had decidedly taken a back seat to these other activities.  Good to be back on track with April output looking to be not brilliant but at least respectable.

A couple of Biblical units are mustering out and will be queueing up at the photo booth once they have been based.  First, though, is a regiment of British cavalry for the 18mm SYW project.  These troopers muster out as the 6th Dragoon Regiment.  Figures are Eureka Miniatures.

For now, back to the painting desk.

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Battle of Solden Hill, BatRep

With a second Battle of Solden Hill on tap for later today, I figured I better get cracking on recounting the first Battle of Solden Hill fought last week.  Besides, Richard, my opponent in Game #1 just published his account of the battle (see Battle of Solden Hill).  I know, I am falling behind but weather has been good and outdoor activities have taken priority over indoor tasks.

For battle briefing see my prior post at Battle of Solden Hill.

On to battle!

Richard chose to declare for the Yorkists so my Lancastrians are defending the high ground of Solden Hill.  Somerset is positioned upon the heights with Lancastrian reinforcements off table when the Yorkists under Edward attack.
Somerset, all alone on Solden Hill.
Edward and his army waste little time in moving on to the attack!  From left to right, Stanley moves along the road to cut off approaching Lancastrian reinforcements while Suffolk and Edward move straight to the heights and Somerset.  As Edward and Suffolk move up the hill, Somerset's archers fall back in the face of such an overpowering threat.  Somerset's MAA, supported by a body of bill, are uncovered to face this determined onslaught.
Yorkists move on to the field of battle.
The Yorkists attack!
As Edward and Suffolk's archers shoot into Somerset and then retire back through their own lines, Edward leads the attack up the hill.  Somerset is ready for the assault.  Supported by a body of bill, Somerset's men repel Edward's attack.  Not only is the attack repulsed but the King falls dead on the field of battle.  Seeing the King fall sends a shock wave through his retinue.  All troops under the King's immediate command drop one level in combat effectiveness.  Oh, what a blow!  Seeing the King go down, Richard paused to consider the ramifications of such an early setback on his plans for taking the hill.  I reckon he considered throwing in the towel at this point.  No, the Yorkists would carry on without their King.  They must avenge his death!       
Edward attacks up the hill and into Somerset...
only to be bloodily repulsed.
Edward falls dead on the field!
Picking up the cry for vengeance, Suffolk leads his MAA forward into Somerset.  Again, the Yorkists are repulsed!  Somerset is proving to be a tough adversary.  Unfortunately for Somerset, he cannot encourage his ward to go over to the attack to capitalize on these Yorkists setbacks.
Suffolk goes in!
With Lancastrian reinforcements arriving onto the field, Stanley attacks to disrupt enemy plans to bring relief to Somerset positioned alone on the Solden Hill.  In a ferocious and prolonged clash, Stanley and Pembroke are locked into mortal combat.  Each are grinding the other down to near the breaking point.  Finally, Stanley is compelled to fall back.  Exhausted, Pembroke cannot follow up.  Both bodies will require time to lick their deep wounds.  A brief lull falls over the battlefield. 
Pembroke attacks down the road.
Finally, Stanley concedes the ground...
but Pembroke is too exhausted to pursue.
A brief battle lull.
Seeing Stanley stymied on the Lancastrian Right, Northumberland decides to turn inward to support Somerset.  Advancing up the western slopes of Solden Hill, Northumberland plows into Suffolk's melee line.  After a brief clash, Suffolk is driven back through his archers.  Northumberland is in hot pursuit.  Suffolk's archers stand but are driven back in disarray after having suffered heavy casualties at the hands of Northumberland's MAA.  The battle is looking good for the Lancastrians!
Northumberland turns toward Solden Hill.
Northumberland hits Suffolk's MAA...
drives them back...
catches Suffolk's archers in pursuit...
sending archers streaming to the rear!
Was looking good, that is!  The Lancastrian position all becomes unhinged rather quickly.

Making best use of the brief battle lull, Stanley rallies his troops and goes back on the attack.  Pembroke, unable to successfully rally any of his ward, is at a decided disadvantage when Stanley strikes.  Overwhelmed, Pembroke's melee line scatters and Pembroke is wounded.  Unfortunately for Pembroke, he is carried from the field by the enemy.  Pembroke's ward is broken! 
Stanley takes the fight to Pembroke.
Buoyed by this success, Suffolk throws caution to the wind and attacks back up the hill and into Northumberland.  This attack does not go well.  Having suffered greatly in earlier efforts, Suffolk's melee line is destroyed in the attack.  Northumberland follows up his routing foe and falls upon Suffolk's archers.  Suffolk's archers retire with Suffolk's ward broken.  Northumberland, flushed with success of seeing Suffolk off, attacks into Edward's ward.  This is when catastrophe strikes.  Appearing to gain the upper hand in this fight, Northumberland has had enough and falls back from the melee.  What?  Northumberland!  
Suffolk attacks and is destroyed!
Northumberland pursues...
but cannot dislodge Edward's melee line.  He retreats.
What is the catastrophe?

With Pembroke broken and Northumberland retreating to the north, Stanley is definitely in the right place at the right time.  Swinging his ward around, Stanley advances up Solden Hill to strike Northumberland in the rear.  First cutting through Northumberland's archers, Stanley hits Northumberland's main melee line.  The fighting is over very quickly.  Shocked by this sudden enemy attack from a perceived safe quarter and with enemy now to both front and rear, Northumberland and his men lay down their arms.  Even though Somerset still clings tentatively to Solden Hill, with two of the three Lancastrian Battles broken, this battle is over. 
Northumberland surrounded!
Edward's Battle.
Somerset's Battle.
Victory to Richard and his Yorkist Army!  Congratulations, Richard!  Very well played.  I thought I had you until I didn't!

While I have some thoughts on this game (especially on Somerset's inability to go over to the attack), those thoughts must wait for another time.  I have a second playing of this scenario in a couple of hours.

That was really good fun.  Thank you!

Monday, April 14, 2025

Battle of Solden Hill

No time to present a battle report yet from last week's game but time to offer up an overview of the scenario in play.  Solden Hill will take to the table in an encore presentation on Wednesday.  Until either last week's battle report appears or Wednesday's game is played, here is a brief scenario outline to fill in the gap. 

Battle of Solden Hill

SITUATION
An isolated portion of the Lancastrian Army occupies a strategic position on Solden Hill. Edward IV receives reports of a lone Lancastrian Battle atop Solden Hill guarding the road north.  Edward sets out quickly to seize the hilltop before enemy reinforcements arrive.

ARMY SIZES
Both armies have three Battles.  The Lancastrian Army has commands of Somerset, Northumberland, and Pembroke.  The Yorkist Army has commands of Edward IV, Stanley, and Suffolk.

LANCASTRIAN ARMY
Somerset – 2x Men-at-Arms (CE6), Retinue Archers (CE4), Retinue Billmen (CE5)
Northumberland – Men-at-Arms (CE6), Retinue Archers (CE4), Retinue Billmen (CE5)
Pembroke – Men-at-Arms (CE6), Retinue Archers (CE4), Retinue Billmen (CE5)

YORKIST ARMY
Edward IV – 2x Men-at-Arms (CE6), Retinue Archers (CE4), Retinue Billmen (CE5)
W. Stanley – Men-at-Arms (CE6), Retinue Archers (CE4), Retinue Billmen (CE5)
Suffolk – Men-at-Arms (CE6), Retinue Archers (CE4), Retinue Billmen (CE5)

DEPLOYMENT
The Lancastrians deploy one Battle atop Solden Hill, facing south.  No Yorkist forces are deployed at the start of the scenario.  Each commander will role for Rating and Priority after the Lancastrians have placed one command upon Solden Hill.

REINFORCEMENTS
Turn 1: The Yorkist Army arrives on the southern table edge.
Turn 2: Two Lancastrian Battles arrive on the northern table edge, either on or west of the road.

TERRAIN
Solden Hill and woods are ROUGH ground.

SPECIAL RULES
No special rules apply to this scenario.  Well, Edward is allowed +1DRM to his Leader Rating die roll before game begins.  Everyone else receives Rating and Priority as rolled.

GAME LENGTH
Scenario lasts until one army breaks.

INITIATIVE
Yorkist Army has Initiative on Turn 1.

VICTORY CONDITIONS
Be occupying Solden Hill when the opposing army breaks. Otherwise, draw.

INSPIRATION
This game derives from Scenario 4: TAKE THE HIGH GROUND in the outstanding book referred to below. I made slight modifications to the scenario but the core concept remains intact – an army attempting to seize and hold onto a vital piece of real estate before enemy reinforcements arrive.

Thomas, Neil. One-Hour Wargames: Practical Tabletop Battles for those with Limited Time and Space (pp. 72-73). Pen & Sword Books.
Battle of Solden Hill
Rescheduled:  Another round of F2F gaming is on deck for Tuesday.  Commands & Colors: Ancients is still up to bat with a first look at the Battle of Cunaxa.

Saturday, April 12, 2025

Assyrian Auxiliary Infantry

With games on Monday and Wednesday this week, refining QRS for another WotR game set for next week, and assorted other distractions, I have been finding little time to sit down for any meaningful time at the painting desk.  I did, however, manage to push out a 14-figure stand of Assyrian Auxiliary foot.  Figures are Wargames Foundry.  These scruffy looking lads were a nice change of pace from the predominately SYW figures marching across my painting desk of late.  
More Biblicals are in work including Babylonian and Hittite foot and a sizable batch of 18mm SYW units waiting to come up in the photo booth.  Also coming out from the workbench are two bodies of WotR foot knights.  Perhaps, I can carve out some time this weekend to get some painting done?  First, I must reset the table for the next game. 
While I briefly mentioned the Po River battles in the previous post, I have yet to chronicle the Solden Hill Battle on Monday in a third playtest of WotR' rules.  The game was a success, but my Lancastrians fell to the cunning play of my opponent.  It was another near run battle, but a game-ending flank attack spoiled an otherwise positive outing.
Yorkists attacking Somerset on Solden Hill.
With a little luck, I can put together a battle account before the next WotR game on Wednesday.  Only a few modifications made to the next iteration of the QRS to simplify the process and reduce possible harm inflicted from one anomalous event.

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

The Last of the Po River Battles?

Wednesday saw a return to the Commands & Colors: Ancients' Po River scenario in C3i06 with Scott hosting another in our continuing F2F sessions with three players.  We played six games with each player playing four games with player rotation.  As in the session two weeks ago, Rome came away with victory in all six games!  Yes, all six games!  Another statistical oddity or we are learning how to deal with the Carthaginian Army.  Scott and I made it out of the session with three wins to one loss each.  Kevin came away 0-4. By the time Kevin makes the drive back to Spokane, I am sure history will be rewritten and he will claim victory in all four of his games!

While Scott and I each played the game from both sides of the table, Kevin insisted on sticking with the Carthaginians in all four of his games. That tactic did not work out so well for Kevin. Rome won 7-6, 7-2, 7-4, 7-4, 7-4, 7-6.


Scott (in his angry rooster shirt)
intently watching Kevin make his move.
With the Society of Ancients announcing that Cunaxa will be the 2026 Battle Day game, we plan to get an early start in next week's session.

As always, good fun and a new lunch place.
Thanks, guys!

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Ancients as the Missing Link?

In a recent post on cluster analysis using wargaming periods as the grouping variable (see Games of a Feather...), one reader's response triggered some additional thought and a return to the data.

In the commentary from that post, Milton.Soong asked,
I have a comment in the ancient/medieval vs other historical period break: I wonder if this is rather a “competition gamers vs non-competition gamer” rather than a preference for period.  Only other big competition set in historical is Bolt Action/FoW. I bet a look at comp vs others would give some interesting insight.

Interesting observation Milton.  Is the separate and distinct clustering of Ancients from more "Modern" historical periods explained by an unobserved "competition" attribute?

Recall from the earlier cluster analysis referenced above that the three-cluster solution produced three distinct groupings.  They are Modern Historical Periods, Ancients Historical Periods, and Non-Historical Periods as shown in Figure 1.  These clusters were formed only from using wargaming period preference as an input variable.

Figure 1

Notice how the Ancients branch only merges to the Modern branch in the step immediately preceding the joining of Non-Historicals to Historicals.  While the cluster analysis shows Ancients Historical merging into Modern Historical at the last branch, this last-minute merge suggests that Ancients may have attributes in common with non-historicals too.  When considering the bifurcation between historical and non-historical periods and Ancients late arrival into the Historical grouping, should Ancients historical periods compose a viable third rail to the Big Two wargaming categories?  If so, on what basis?

Returning to Milton's suggestion of searching for an unobserved "competition" component possibly driving these clustering results, let's see what the data suggest.

Figure 2
To begin, the list of all gaming periods included in the survey are reduced down to the Top 10 periods.  These Top 10 periods include four non-historical periods and six historical periods.  All three of the periods making up the Ancients group are included.

For the competition component, we examine preferred Game_Type responses.  The possible responses to game type include:
  • Campaign-driven game
  • Cooperative game
  • Pick-up game
  • Role-playing game
  • Scenario-driven game
  • Tournament game

Game_Type of "Tournament" will be the response used for measuring competition.  Figure 3 illustrates the Top 10 periods with each period's percent distribution for each Game_Type.  Figure 3 shows periods grouped by Non-Historical periods and Historical periods.

Figure 3
From Figure 3, Non-Historicals tend to fall below Historicals with respect to percentages for Pick-up and Scenario-driven games and surpass Historicals in percentages of Cooperative, Role-playing and Tournament games.  These results are likely not too surprising or unexpected.

When Historicals are divided into Ancients and Modern periods as clustering suggests, something interesting comes to the surface.
Figure 4
When Ancients historical are singled out from Modern historical (see Figure 4), the graphic illustrates that, as a group, Ancients historical gamers are more likely to prefer tournament play and less likely to prefer scenario-driven games than Modern historical gamers.  Gamers in the Ancients Era (up to AD500) are less likely to participate in campaigns than other historical periods.  In these measures, Ancients have tendencies that lie somewhere between non-historicals and modern historicals.

Competition or tournament gaming appears more likely within the three Ancients gaming periods than within the three modern historical gaming periods.  Milton suggested the presence of competition gaming may be a contributing factor in gravitating toward Ancients.  Is it, though?  Remember that these are correlations and tendencies, not causations.  These tendencies draw from game type responses only and World War II sees a similar game type profile.  As for Ancients as a missing link in the competition/non-competition divide, perhaps through Ancients wargaming, non-historical gamers with an interest in competition may move toward modern historicals or vice versa with Ancients acting as a possible conduit between the two?  Whatever the route, Ancients wargaming seems a possible place to either land or pass through.

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Back to the Po River, 203BCE

While this week is quiet on the gaming front as I take it easy from a recent back injury, last Thursday saw four games of Commands & Colors Ancients.  In a return to the much fought over ground at the 203 BCE Battle of Po River, Kevin and I joined Scott on his home turf for a gaming session using his splendid 28mm Ancients.
Scott, our host for the day.
While the Carthaginians have been taking two out of three games against the Romans in the past dozen games, Thursday witnessed Rome turning the tables on Carthage.  Rome saw victory in three out of the four games played in Thursday's session.  Rome won 7-5, 7-5, 7-4 while losing 5-7.  I came away 2-0, winning with both Rome and Carthage.  In my 7-5 Roman win, I started off 0-4 down before roaring back to victory.  A rare and most welcome outcome for me!  Ah, it was a good day at the gaming table but the lunch tab was on me.
Next week, gaming sees a return to the table as WotR armies take to the field once again on Monday.  Monday's contest utilizes One Hour Wargames' Scenario #4: TAKE THE HIGH GROUND as a basis for the contest.  In this trial, the notion of Leader Priorities is added into the calculus.  Should be fun.