Officer for Great Italian Wars Project

During the Christmas holidays, my buddies often exchange small wargaming related gifts.  Sometimes these gifts are meant to fill in a gap in the recipient's collections or projects.  Other times, these gifts are a source for "priming the pump."  That is, introducing a small incentive to get a project moving.  Of course, it could be both!

Such was the situation with these two figures.  After the first outing with Jake's Great Italian Wars project (see Battle of Maisnon BatRep), Jake presented to me this duo of black primed figures.  Knowing that a Great Italian Wars project was seriously under consideration, his timing was perfect.  My timing, however, was less than perfect having taken me this long to get the figures into the painting queue.  At least I finished them before Christmas 2015 rolls around!  That in itself is a small success.  Figures are Wargames Foundry.

Great figures and this stand will make a fine command element.

Jake, thank you again! 

Two, five figure stands of mounted gendarmes and two, three figure stands of mounted crossbowmen are in work.

ECW Battle of Southam - OHW

Southam Initial Deployments

The first set of rules up for the Battle of Southam (see Battle of Southam Setup) comparison is Neil Thomas' One-Hour Wargames (see OHW Review).  The ECW variant posted on the AMWGroups Yahoo Group will be in effect for this replay. When referring to cavalry in the published variant, the descriptors of "Royalist" and "Parliamentarian" have been swapped.  Parliamentarian forces under Lord Brooke will always be the First Player.

The battle begins with Brooke advancing his trotters on both wings down from the heights in order to protect the advance of the foot.  The two regiments of foot on Brooke's left step off.  Roundhead guns open fire, targeting Royalist horse.  Royalist horse sustain five hits.  Royalists target the leading foot regiment and inflict four hits.  Orange arrows signify Parliamentarian movement, Blue arrows signify Royalist movements, and white arrows denote shooting.

Battle begins

Northampton responds by sending his two cavalry wings forward to meet the enemy horse.  Royalist guns inflicts four hits on the exposed foot.

Royalist horse advance

Brooke's guns change targets from the lead horse regiment to the lone Royalist foot regiment.  Both guns draw blood, inflicting six hits total.  Brooke's trotters on both wings fire into the Royalist horse.  Leading Royalist horse regiments each suffer three hits.  Trotters on the right wing run out of ammo.  Brooke's infantry come down from the heights and into the valley.

Heavy Parly fire

To reduce casualties from fire, both Royalist cavalry wings charge home into Parly horse.  Royalist guns target the lead Parly foot.  Artillery fire has no effect.

Royalist horse charge

In the clash of swords on both wings, the Parly trotters suffer.  The trotters on the left, hit by the charging left wing, takes four hits while the trotters on right take eight hits.  Trotters on the right witness more than 50% of their effectives go down. 

Cavalry clash of on both wings

Cavalry clash!

Parly foot advance

Brooke's guns switch bombardment back to the Royalist gun.  The Royalist gun takes heavy casualties (seven hits) but one of Brooke's guns goes silent due to lack of ammunition.  With cavalry clashing on its left, the leading Parly foot regiment wheels into the melee. Casualties mount in the Royalist ranks as the melees on both flanks swirl in desperation.

Well positioned Parly guns bombard

To relieve pressure on the outnumbered Royalist horse on the right, the trailing horse regiment charges into the Roundhead foot.  Royalist guns fire into the advancing Parly foot.  The purple bannered foot suffers four hits.

Royalists respond

Clash escalates on the Royalist right

In the three melees, Roundhead trotters take heavy casualties.  The trotters now have nine and twelve hits each and are approaching breakpoints of 15.  Not giving up, the Roundheads counterattack.  Having sustained heavy casualties from both artillery and melee, the Royalist horse on the left is destroyed by the trotters.  Casualties, likewise, mount on the Royalist right.

Melees rage on both wings

Royalist artillery continues bombarding the lead foot while the second supporting Royalist horse charges into the weakened trotter on the Royalist left.

Battle for control of the left

In the clash of horse and man, both of Brooke's horse are broken and scatter.  Royalist cavalry on the right wheel to threaten the foot.

Parly cavalry destroyed!

With one flank open and the other in jeopardy, artillery and musketry combine to hopefully stop Royalist cavalry from storming the heights.  Taking fire from two sources, the Royalist horse on the left take eight hits.  In the continuing pike vs horse melee on the right, the Royalist horse is approaching its breaking point with twelve hits.

Heavy fire from Roundhead forces

Undaunted by the heavy casualties, the remaining left wing Royalist horse charges up the hill and into the guns.  For now, the guns hold.

Into the guns!

With both flanks collapsing, Brooke presses on, deep into Royalist positions in the center.  While Parly musketry is getting too hot for the Royalist gun, Roundhead infantry charge into the Royalist foot.  

Brooke counters in the center

Push of pike

In the exchange, Royalists lose both the guns and a horse regiment.  The threat to the Brooke's left has dissipated.  Casualties rise rapidly in the infantry scrum near the bridge.

Royalist gun and horse are lost

On the heights, Royalist horse is not making much progress against the two Roundhead guns.  In the valley, Royalist dragoons pour heavy fire into the foot but run out of ammo in so doing.  Royalist foot gain the upper hand in the push of pike and scatter the Roundhead infantry.  Severely weakened by their exertions, the Royalist foot falls to musketry from the Roundhead foot astride the road.

Parly foot destroyed

Royalist foot destroyed

Facing two Roundhead foot, the remaining Royalist dragoons charge into the badly mauled foot standing astride the road.  Teetering on destruction, one little shove is all it takes to destroy the Roundhead foot.  Finally, on the heights, the Royalist cavalry goes down.

Dragoons lead a desperate charge

Roundhead foot bear down on the dragoons

With the Parly artillery immobile, only two active units remain on the field.  Having taken heavy casualties, the Royalist dragoons turn and charge into the remaining Parly foot in an attempt to hold the field.

The last clash

On the brink of destruction itself with fourteen hits, the lone remaining Roundhead foot regiment finished off the Royalist dragoons.

Parliament Victory

Parliament is victorious but only just!

While a typical game lasts 15 turns, this engagement took 12 turns to decide.  It was a close contest, for sure.  The outcome came down to the last melee with a Roundhead foot only one hit away from destruction being able to eliminate the badly damaged dragoons. 

That came down to a nail biter and the last roll!  The game played quickly and almost certainly took less than one hour to complete.  The inclusion of artillery in the variant was a good addition but there remain a few changes I may consider.  First to address is the interaction between artillery and attacking cavalry (or infantry).  Even attacking uphill, the Royalist horse ought to have been able to either overcome or at least break off.  Once stuck in, units may not break off the melee.  Perhaps cavalry ought to be able to perform such a maneuver and call off when engaged in hand-to-hand combat?

Units can rack up hits at an almost alarming rate.  With no interpenetration allowed, Royalists may have been better served to field their horse abreast rather than in tandem.  Still, lots to think about and I now have a good feel for Thomas' OHW rules.  Next OHW game may actually witness some tactical finesse.  More analysis to follow on OHW.  

The next game in the series will move up the complexity scale with my introduction of Impetvs Basic Baroque.

Review: Thomas' One-Hour Wargames Rules

Before launching into a comparison of three rules using the ECW Battle of Southam as a baseline (see ECW Battle of Southam for background and set up), a brief review of one of the rulesets used in this exercise, One-Hour Wargames (OHW) by Neil Thomas might be helpful.

To begin, OHW is subtitled, "Practical Tabletop Battles for Those With Limited Time and Space" and, therefore, likely intended for quick play games on small playing surfaces.  The title alone suggests high playability and quick resolution at the sacrifice of simulation or realism.  OHW places emphasis on "game."  Will that be the case?  

OHW provides rules for nine periods of warfare ranging from ancients to WWII.  Each period shares a common two to three pages of core rules.  The rules are extremely brief and simple.  Battles may be fought on small tables with only a half-dozen units per side.   Each period has four troop types, and the rules for all these periods share an IGO/UGO turn structure: move, shoot, hand-to-hand combat, and eliminate destroyed units.  Each turn is comprised of two player turns in a game typically lasting 15 turns.  Suggested force size is 4-6 units with each unit being able to absorb 15 hits before elimination. Offensive capability does not degrade with hits so an attacking unit fights at full strength until destroyed.  To score hits against an opponent, an attacking unit throws one D6.  The pips on the die determine the number of hits inflicted although this total may be modified.  Simple.  

Unusual in this turn sequence is the active player performs all actions without interruption from his opponent.  That is, the active player moves, shoots, and resolves hand-to-hand combat without any threat of retaliation from his opponent.  Even in hand-to-hand combat, only the active player scores hits.  There are no morale or leadership rules.  Right.  Leaders play no role and are not necessary for the game.  Units are not differentiated on either quality or quantity.  All units of the same troop type are exactly the same.  For a game geared towards completion in an hour or less, not every traditional rules concept can be included.  Thomas has distilled these mechanisms down to bare minimums with rules and outcomes easy to remember.  After one trip through the turn sequence, the game can be played with little need to reference the rules.

While all periods share a common set of of mechanisms, each period is differentiated by a change or two to the basic game engine to reflect nuances between periods.  As an example, for the Pike and Shot rules, the possibility of running out of ammunition is introduced.  Infantry and Reiters run a 1/3 chance of running out of ammo each time they fire.  As an added twist, these same infantry and Reiter units may only close to hand-to-hand combat once they are out of ammo.  In the pike and shot rules, artillery is excluded as a unit type.  Thomas' explanation for this exclusion makes sense.

With a capability to withstand 15 hits before elimination, a unit in OHW can, on average, endure about four attacks before being destroyed.  Quick combat resolution and if a unit is either flanked or hit in the rear, hits are doubled.  Even though combat resolution can result in a unit being destroyed in a few actions, combat results seem attritional with both sides able to dish out and absorb punishment equally.  The only method for overcoming this attritional combat is to tactically maneuver your units to hit a single enemy with multiple units. 

OHW also contains a lengthy section of thirty scenarios.  Most of these scenarios can be found spread among the classics of wargaming.  Nearly one third of the scenarios originate from Grant's Scenarios for Wargamers while Grant gets the nod in a number of other scenarios as well.  Among Grant's other works sited include Ancient Wargames, Wargaming in History, and Wargaming Companion.  Scenarios are drawn from other authors' works too.  These include Featherstone (Wargaming Pike & Shot, Wargamer's Newsletter, Wargaming: Ancient and Medieval), Wesencraft (With Pike and Shot), Asquith (Scenarios War of 1812), TAHGC's Panzer Leader and Panzer Blitz, and Weigle's 1866. 

Finally, there are chapters on solo wargaming and background reading.  I found the Background Reading chapter very interesting containing references to a veritable Who's Who in wargaming.

OHW provides a basic framework upon which other chrome could be added.  In fact, many such variants can easily be found.  For examples of variants, see AMWGroups on Yahoo Groups.  One strength of these very simple rules is the ability to adapt the rules to address ones' own tastes and preferences.  One weakness of producing such a terse and simple set of rules is that not all eventualities are covered.  Omissions are present and interpretations could be many.  For the Southam replay, the ECW variant available on the aforementioned AMWGroups will be enforced. 

So, how does the game play?  We will find out when the Battle of Southam gets the Thomas OHW treatment.

African Spearmen for the Reconquista

After a very long hiatus from the 28mm Reconquista project, a one stand, 12 figure Impetvs element moves out from the painting desk.  The three blister packs had been laying around my work area for several months so instead of binning them into their proper storage container, I painted them.  Good solution, I think!  

Figures are Artizan and this makes the second unit of these figures to be fielded for the project.  Very fine sculpting with virtually no flash.

Having not seen the Reconquista project on either gaming table nor painting desk since last winter, I should make a point of getting this project back into regular rotation.

Lectures To Paint By

Having a long, yet infrequent commute, I need something to help pass the time on those long, early morning/late afternoon five hour drives to and from Seattle.  Since discovering The Teaching Company's Great Courses lectures thanks to my gaming friend Scott, the commute has been much more interesting and time passes more quickly.

At present, I have churned through six courses, the latest being The Peloponnesian War by Dr. Kenneth Harl of Tulane University.  In 36 half-hour lectures and primarily relying on Thucydides, Harl takes the listener from the causes of the war through its conclusion including a summarization of lessons to be learned from the war.

Harl weaves an entertaining and fascinating story of the conflict with his own insights and personal interpretations intermixed with the traditional viewpoints.  Harl studied under Donald Kagan and frequently Kagan and his works are mentioned within the lectures.  As I listened, I thought it might be worthwhile to check Kagan's narrative against Harl's.

Kagan's The Peloponnesian War was purchased at a Friends of Multinomah Library (Portland, OR) book sale a few years ago for a few dollars.  Like a number of books in my library, it sits unread.  Off the shelf comes Kagan as my thoughts turn towards tackling this massive work.

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These audio lectures are not only useful for long commutes.  I have found these lectures to be the perfect accompaniment to solitary painting sessions in the game room.  As a side benefit, listening to these historical works provides painting motivation and contemplations on existing or possible new projects.  So far, no Peloponnesian project has made it onto my project list yet.

ECW Battle of Southam, 1642

The ECW collection has not seen action in a very long time.  How long?  I cannot recall but at least two years, I suppose.  One of my 2015 goals (see 2015 Project Plans) was to get this collection onto the gaming table for an outing or two.

Following Jeff's ECW replay of Battle of Southam (see Jeff's Battle of Southam) provided the motivation to both deploy the troops for battle and give this scenario a try.  Jeff's replay was based upon the scenario by Wyre Forest Wargames Club using their rules, Warr Without an Enemie (see Battle of Southam scenario).  The Warr Without an Enemie scenario, in turn, is drawn from Robert Giglio's English Civil War Gaming Scenarios Vol 3 (2005). 

Battle of Southam Initial Deployments

Southam is an early war battle in which two mixed forces clash opposite the village of Itchington.  With their backs against the Itchin River, the Royalists must hold the field or be dashed against the banks of the river.  As the OB illustrates, the Royalists under Compton outnumber Brooke's Roundheads by about 2-to-1 in cavalry yet are outnumbered in both artillery and foot.  Interesting tactical problem! 

Parliamentarian forces

Parliamentarian Army OOB:
Army Commander: Lord Brooke: Average

Infantry:

• Colonel John Hampden's Foot
• Lord Brooke's Foot
• Colonel Denzil Holles' Foot

Cavalry:

• Left Wing Cavalry: Fiennes Horse (Trotters)
• Right Wing Cavalry: Goodwin's Horse (Trotters)

Two artillery stands

Royalist forces

Royalist Army OOB:
Army Commander:Earl of Northampton: Good
Infantry:

• Earl of Northampton's Foot
• Sir William Saville's Dragoons (Dismounted) 

Cavalry:

• Wilmot's and Carnarvon's Horse (Galloper)
• Legge's and Clarke's Horse (Galloper)
• Compton's and Northampton's Horse (Galloper)
• Saville's and Middleton's Horse (Galloper)

One artillery stand

Resolution of the game itself with be carried out on a portion of the gaming table.  With the size of the forces given, only one-third of the table is required (4' x 6').  Southam is a straight up fight with the objective to defeat the opposition although if the Royalists can hold the field at game's end,  they win.

My plan is to fight out this battle using three different rules systems; two of which are untested by myself.  The two new rules to undergo some scrutiny are Thomas' One-Hour Wargames and Dadi & Piombo's draft of Basic Baroque for Impetvs.  Most of my ECW gaming has been carried out using a variation of Howard Whitehouse's Ironsides.  Ironsides always produce a fun and tense game.  This will be an interesting exercise in a comparison between the three sets.  As a bonus, I can knock off a few items from my 2015 planning objectives.

Having each of the belligerents arriving upon the field with differences in force composition, Southam provides a test of asymmetrical warfare under each ruleset.  What should the strategies and tactics be for each?  My initial thoughts are that the Royalists must employ their superiority in cavalry to destroy Brooke before he can bring his infantry and artillery advantage to bear.  Of course, the Parliamentarian forces under Brook will want to do the opposite!  That is, get his infantry into the fight to force the Royalists off map before his force succumbs to the Royalist cavalry advantage.

How would YOU handle the asymmetry in this clash? 

Crimean Era Russian Infantry in 25mm

In and effort to one day field a usable force in Kevin's NWF campaigning, off the painting desk is the first of hopefully a handful of Russian contingents.

Most formed or regular infantry are fielded in battalions of 24 figures for the campaign.  That is what I have done as well.  Figures are Wargames Foundry from the Crimean War range and these are simply stunning sculpts.  Molding is crisp with good facial details.  For me, painting 24 x 25mm figures is a large bite to chew but having figures in greatcoat helped greatly.  Russian greatcoats take the Minwax stain well too.

Russian regiments will be fielded in 3 x 24 figure battalions.  I will need to verify in what strength Russian cavalry should be fielded before I dive into a few Russian cossacks.  This will be a fun, little, diversionary side project.  After writing that last sentence, the meanings of "little," "diversionary," and "side" in reference to a project have me a bit befuddled.

Expect to see the occasional Russian pop off the painting desk along with a few supporting native elements.