Once More to Take the High Ground

With my son occupied watching memes on Friday evening, I decided I wanted to see if the same scenario I played the other day ("Take the High Ground") would be as close, given my modifications to the "Machine Age" rules for One Hour Wargames.

For what it's worth, in my mind, the infantry are companies, the guns are batteries, the cavalry are squadrons.

• The Italians are defending and have four infantry, one heavy infantry, and one unit of Lancieri.
• The Austrians are attacking with four infantry units, one heavy infantry, and one field gun battery. 

The opening layout. I interpret Neil Thomas's instruction "arrive on the Southern table edge" as literally meaning, place the unit on the edge of the table - and that counts as the attacker's movement.

After a taking a hammering from the Austrian barrage, the Italians in the trench opened fire, with the heavy infantry making a strong argument for the Austrians to reconsider this whole thing.

However, the Austrians launched a trench assault, with two companies supported by a third.  The carnage on that portion of the battlefield would be terrible and not in the Austrian favor.

Meanwhile, the Lancieri launched a heroic, if ill-advised, charge against the Austrians who had taken a position holding the road south. 

 

The cavalry needs their bases changed to the Medium Foliage Green

Their first effort was repelled, and the Lancieri took heavy fire as they regrouped for a follow-up attack.

Meanwhile an Italian company advanced through the woods to engage the Austrian flank and the Austrians continued their assault on the hilltop trench, aided by the field gun battery.

A red die means they've taken 12 + whatever is showing in damage. A yellow die is 6 + whatever face is showing.

The Austrians repulsed a second cavalry charge, and the latter was forced to disperse under oppressive rifle fire.

Still, the assault on the hill had faltered and although the Italians had lost their heavy infantry (no doubt routed in panic after several rounds of intense melee), they had a fresh unit ready to take its place, with another unit providing support on their flank to keep the Austrians from maneuvering around the hill.

Green dice show the number of hits taken (1-6). No die means no hits. I do sometimes move the out of the way for pictures, but only if it's one or two dice.

An Italian victory seemed neatly in hand. 

The incredible firing by the plucky Austrian battery was a bright spot - it took quite a few hits but shrugged them off (the Italians rolled 1s and 2s) while dealing a good bit of damage. 

Eventually, the Austrian heavies disposed of the Italians in the woods and were able to come to bear.

It still wasn't a sure thing.

On turn 14 the eliminated the Italians and on turn 15 moved onto the hill.

With casualties high and morale failing on both sides (morale being abstractly handled by Neil Thomas in OHW by the loss of hit points), momentum (and turns) was running out.

With a last burst of effort, the Austrian heavies managed to capture the trench and establish a defensive position of their own (they cleared the trench on turn 14 by fire, and then claimed it on turn 15). 

From there they could cover the advance of the troops coming behind them.

Austrian victory.

*****

A second One Hour Wargames game that came down to the last turn. 

Maybe I was playing them wrong all of the times before? I don't know. I was surprised though. 

Here are the modifications I used:

• Shooting: 
• No shooting along a trench line (what is shown on the table is a straight line but in reality, it is full of zigs and zags). 
• Units may fire into close combat on a turn when a unit on their side initiates close combat (shooting occurs after movement but is assumed to be accompanying it).
• Trenches:
• Units in trench have 360 LOS with respect to being flanked (i.e. they can't be)
• Units in trench may only shoot as normal(45-degrees forward). 
• Units in trench take half-damage from shooting. 
• Mounted cavalry may not cross trenches
• Close Combat: 
• Infantry units that charge into close combat, stay in close combat until one side is destroyed. 
• Attacking uphill reduces damage caused by 1/2
• Close combat long a trench, e.g. enemy units occupying sections of the same trench, does half damage - reduced numbers of men able to engage immediately and twists and turns of the trench. 
• Otherwise close combat ignores all cover - woods, trench, buildings - (they are lobbing grenades, leaping into the trench, etc.).
• Cavalry charges
• see Rifle & Sabre rules.
• Field Guns: 
• May not move once fired. 
• Field guns may rotate in place (counts as movement for the sake of firing).

I opted to use the barrage option from the rulebook, and defenders would start in a trench. 

Dice rolling played a bigger part in how this one went I feel - poor rolls kept Austrians in the open from being routed. 

I wanted infantry close combat to be a decision to make - in keeping with the history (strangely missing from the rules) but also from a game play perspective. It's a gamble because you are stuck in at that point and you lose the ability to maneuver that unit to other parts of the table where it might be needed (such as the failing assault on the hilltop).

In the Ancients game, I used that fact to pin enemy troops - I had skirmishers advance far ahead to stop reinforcements from arriving as fast as they might otherwise. With everyone in the "Machine Age" rules having the ability to shoot, stopping a unit from advancing is less of an issue and you can wait for them to come into range (and you'll get first shot as they can't move and shoot). 

Engaging just to stop them from advancing makes little sense if they aren't in cover.

The Austrians who fought the Italian company that had advanced through the woods, and taken cover at the edge, received the intended benefit of engaging in close combat - no halving damage at all. Thus, it was worth making the effort to get unreduced hits in (and aided by their +2 for being heavy infantry, they were pretty devastating), even at the sacrifice of being able to move.

The hilltop assault was not the best test of my infantry close combat rules, because attacking a unit on a hill still halves the damage, putting it on par with shooting (since rifle fire is not halved for shooting up hill, just for the cover). You could argue that they should have simply moved into range and fired, with the benefit of being able to fall out of range to be replaced by a fresher unit if necessary.

The default "Machine Age" rules assume cavalry are dismounted/shooting for the sake of combat. I wanted to field Lancieri. The "Rifle & Sabre" cavalry rules worked and gave what seemed to be a reasonable result.

The bounce off in the event of failing to destroy the target does allow them to move somewhere else - giving them an advantage over infantry in close combat, but I didn't take advantage of that. 

Instead, they just repeated their charge and eventually this was to their detriment. I should have kept them out of rifle range as long as possible. Had I saved them for when the enemy was weakened and preferably was otherwise engaged, and THEN charged, they might have been more effective and had more influence on the outcome.

We'll see if I learn these lessons for next time!