Downsizing (Free Stuff) Part 2!

Even if you've claimed something from my previous post, please feel free to let me know if anything here interests you (there’s  still a few things left there).

Nothing left here, folks! Thanks for looking!

One Hour Wargames Medieval: Botched Relief (Scenario 28, Tempus Campaign Game 5)

The Duke of Lux had ordered Lever du Soleil to be held by a small force under the command of Lord Alba. Learning of the approach of Nox forces, under command of Lord Buio (in service of the Duke of Tenebris), Alba sent for a relief force. 

To his dismay, the indecisive Baron Nuvoloso had been sent. Ever non-committal the Baron arrayed his force on a hill overlooking the approach to Lever du Soleil but took a wait and see attitude towards the proceedings, even as Buio's small force advanced on the village.

Meanwhile, in the village, Lord Alba organized his men-at-arms and signaled his knights located just North of the town to protect the north side of the village.

Buio's knights raced towards the village intent on driving the Dies force out.

Buio could not help but notice the Dies banners flying and the mass of men and horses on the hill, and so deployed one unit of knights to guard against a flank attack.

As Alba's knights moved to protect the North end of the village, Nuvoloso begrudgingly committed a unit of knights to the defense. They made their way towards the village, taking up the position originally held by Alba's knights.

The battle lines crashed at the village. Buio's levies moved up to bring additional pressure to Alba's force in the village.

Unfortunately, the knights to their flanks were destroyed or driven off the field, leaving the levies engaged to their front with the men-at-arms - who valiantly defended the village under Alba's direct leadership - and exposed to a charge from Nuvoloso's knights.

The result was predictable. 

Judging the combined losses from all of the previous battles be too costly to continue the campaign, and with the heart of winter approaching, Tenebris ordered a general retreat to the Nox side of the Nox-Aurora border - and in doing so, conceded victory to his opposite, the Duke of Lux.

Tenebris then ordered a horse readied and, with a handful of knights and men-at-arms, rode West ahead of his retreating army to personally report his failing to Luna, Empress of Nox.
 
For his part, Lux did not order any pursuit of the Nox army -  the Dies army had suffered their own significant losses and Lux too noted the coming winter weather. Of course, some commanders led raids against the retreating Nox forces, but nothing more than minor skirmished resulted.

Nuvoloso, meanwhile, claimed an outsized role in the victory to any and all who would listen, though he himself had committed just one of his four units to the battle. Alba was not amused but, outranked by the Duke, he kept his growing disdain for the latter to himself, and when asked, would only reply that he was "grateful for the assistance".

******
The scenario was 28, Botched Relief.

Red (Dies) had 4 knights, 1 levy, and 1 men-at-arms. Because they lost the last battle, they had one unit with 1d3 fewer hit points.
Blue (Nox) had 3 knights, 1 levy. Because they won the last battle, they had one unit with 1d3 extra hit points.

I created plans for both sides, diced to see which I'd follow for each and used a similar random event method I had been using to provide positive and negative effects, but rolled for each side. That is, I was playing to find out who would win, not to play one or the other side as "mine"

Nox rolled no such events, but Dies did, multiple times, and then rolled favorable events at that. That said, the game only lasted 6 turns. I credit this to a poor plan for the Nox rather than benefits from random events..

I played a second game with a different plan that involved trying to ride around the Red force, to strike at the village from behind, but the end result was the same. That game lasted ten turns, and both sides rolled several random events. As plans go, I think this one was better but as has been observed before, men-at-arms in cover are extremely difficult to dislodge.

And, since a unit once engaged in melee stays that way, they essentially expose themselves to flank and rear attacks at that point - meaning the Nox knights were easily rolled up after trying to engage the men-at-arms in the village.

Also, I decided that contact with any part of the village constituted contact with the men-at-arms within. Looking at the map, the village is a rectangle and it's definitely wider than 6 inches- I eyeballed it as 9 inches wide and 6 inches deep. Maybe when I get a print copy of OHW, I'll take a ruler to it and figure it out correctly.

I'm sure I'll think a bit more about the campaign, and thus have more to say about it, but for now, I'll just note that it was an enjoyable experience being able to write a narrative that continued from one session to the next. I have played precious few wargame campaigns, but I can say that I prefer them infinitely more than one-off games.

One Hour Wargames Medieval: Bottleneck Situation (Scenario 24, Tempus Campaign Game 4)

Seizing the momentum with his victory at the Battle of Aube, Tenebris sent Lord Buio with a fresh force to probe for an opening by which to attack the Dies army. As this force moved Eastward in two columns, it ran into a blocking force under the command of Lord Luminoso, in service of the Duke of Lux, near Lake Dageraad.

Buio sent his knights around the lake to strike the Nox force from the rear.

The Nox men-at-arms advanced down the road where they came under fire from peasant archers shooting from the thick woods North of the road.

Unable to effectively engage the archers, Buio ordered the men-at-arms forward in close order - willingly exposing one unit to an onslaught of arrows,so the lead unit could engage the Dies men-at-arms holding the road.

As  his knights made their way around the lake, they discovered that their opposite number were maneuvering to counter their efforts.

Men and horses massed in preparation for what was to come.

Luminoso's men-at-arms advanced towards the Nox column on the road, in order to contain them between the lake on one side and the archers in the woods on the other.

Both on the road and to the East of the lake, the forces clashed..

Seizing opportunity, a unit of Nox knights raced past the melee in an effort to outflank the Dies men-at-arms blocking the road.

Buio hadd mistakenly held his levies in reserve too long and they were too far back to cover the exposed rear of his last unit of men-at-arms. Arrows rained on them from the forest.

Fortunately for Buio, his enterprising knights were positioned to strike.

As the Nox men-at-arms crashed into Luminoso's men-at-arms, Nox knights crashed into them from the rear. The Dies men-at-arms were utterly destroyed. Meanwhile Luminoso's knights, though badly battered, prepared to face the other unit of Buio's knights.

Pinned by the lake to their rear, facing an enemy to their front, and the possibility of a flank attack as well, the Dies knights fought bravely, until all fell, fled, or surrendered.

The peasant archers remained but they  were of little concern to Buio with the road before them open. Indeed without additional troops to deal with the enemy definitively, at best, the archers could hope to harass the Nox force from a distance.

When the messenger reached the Duke of Tenebris with news of the victory, the Duke set into motion a plan for forcing the total capitulation of the Dies army.

*****
The scenario was number 24, Bottleneck Situation. It lasted 8 turns.

Edit: I forgot to include the Orders of Battle! And some other things too - in my defense, I wrote up the rest of this post at 1 AM.

Red (Dies) - 2 knights, 1 men-at-arms, 1 peasant archer (functionas levies with bows, only unit that can enter woods)
Blue (Nox) - 3 knights, 2 men-at-arms, 1 levy

Nox was "my" army, Dies had a few setup options I came up with and diced between (again I put some effort into this, a few days in advance, and it was a lot of fun - adding what amounts to an entirely different kind of game. They were also the beneficiary of the simple solo system I use and indeed, it helped keep one of their knights on the table when they would have otherwise been eliminated.

Also, it wasn't clear to me exactly how the woods were to function. Neil Thomas isn't terribly specific - how close to the edge must a unit be to shoot out? If a unit in the woods is touching the edge of the woods and an enemy unit contacts them, can they engage in melee even though no other unit type can enter the woods properly? 

I decided that the peasant archers had to be within 1" of the edge of the woods to shoot out and that  Blue units, save for any archers, could not attack the Red unit in the woods - since units aren't exactly where the bases are, an attacking unit, being in base to base contact with a unit in the woods is essentially the same as trying to enter the woods and that's not allowed.

This is quite an advantage for Red, but as they have only 4 units total, it's not unfair. In the event, Blue had no archers. However, by using one unit of men-at-arms to absorb hits from the peasant archers, they could prolong the survival of the lead attacking unit of men-at-arms and more or less render the unit in the woods ineffective.

With this victory, Nox evens the score, 2-2, and so it looks like game 5 will decide the campaign!

Game 5 will probably be my last game in 2020 and is tentatively scheduled form Monday 2019-12-30.

One Hour Wargames Medieval: Static Defenese (Scenario 14, Tempus Campaign Game 3)

The Duke of Tenebris continued to fall back after the loss at the crossroads. Reinforcements from Nox arrived from the West, but morale was shaken among the veterans of the last two clashes. Determined to stem the advancing Dies tide, Tenebris ordered Lord Buio to occupy the village of Aube and to hold the hill South West of the woods near there in order to prevent the Duke of Lux from advancing down the main road to the border and force his army to an overland route which would take considerably longer.

If not, Lux would be in Nox territory in a few days time.

For his part, the Duke of Lux sent the wing of his army under the command of Lord Leggero,  with orders to take either the hill or to occupy Aube for the opposite reasons. Either would give Dies the means to control the road and allow the army to advance to the border

(The action is described in the captions below the picture)

Leggero split his force - sending the bulk to take the village, despite the narrow frontage available for the attack. His knights on the left were to be held in reserve until they could be brought around the woods for a finishing blow.

Tenebris had made a wise choice in Buio, who ordered his knights protecting the flanks of the village to ride out and meet the enemy, as the defenders in the village put up a spirited defense.

Aware of the losses his forces in the village had sustained, Buio ordered the knights from the hill to take to the village to aid in its defense.

The first unit of Dies knights fell or fled but the men-at-arms, brimming with enthusiasm of fresh reinforcements prepared to storm the village and finish the job.

As the knights from the hill arrived, they were pursued by Lord Leggero's reserve of knights. Buio's archers prepared to meet them.

And meet them they did. When the Dies nights passed the hill they came under fire from archers there and then from the archers West of the village.  Although the archers near the village were ridden down, the knights were struck down by arrows from their front and back.

Dies men-at-arms seized the village, finally defeating the knights there.

It wasn't enough however - despite defeating the Nox knights, the village, and the men-at-arms within it, were subject to a bombardment of arrows from the remaining Nox archers.Eventually the men-at-arms were forced to abandon the field.

A Nox victory and the Duke of Tenebris keeps his head a little longer.

*****
Scenario 14, Static Defense
Red force - Nox - 3 knights, 2 archers, 1 men-at-arms
Blue force - Dies - 4 knights, 1 men-at-arms, 1 levy

Dies had 1 unit get a bonus of 1d3 hit points. Nox had 1 unit with a 1d3 bonus, and one with a 1d3 penalty.

Red must keep 2 units within 12" of the hill and 2 units within 12" of the village.

Blue has 15 turns to capture either the hill or the village.

Dies was "my" army since they had more to do, Nox was the NPC side, to their benefit. This makes three losses for the side I commanded, in case you were counting.

Inspired by Dale's postings about Mr. Babbage, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would approach this from the Nox side, and came up with several plans which were diced between. This isn't normally something I do - I usually make a plan just before the game starts and hope for the best. This was a fun exercise to really think about the battle field and the capabilities of the forces involved and where the best deployments could be.


Yes, that's me taking credit for the Nox win even as I am responsible for the Dies loss!

The last few turns of the game saw no movement but were still fun to play out, rather than concede. The men-at-arms had no real options once they had no one left to melee nearby - turn 10. It would have taken two turns to reach the archers, and two turns to get back to the village- the archers had a 1 point bonus to their hit points due to a random event earlier, so they were not going to go down easily. Not a one hit knock-out that's for sure. The only question was whether or not the archers could do enough damage before the game clock ran out.

It didn't look like it on their first attack (men at arms take 1/4 damage in a village). But then the archers rolled 5s and 6s for their attacks and the men-at-arms, already reduced by their fighting with the knights previously, could not hold on.

 The game ended on turn 14.

The next campaign game is the bottleneck. Nox will be attacking as they push back Eastward into Aurora.

Speaking of, here's a very very very rough attempt at a map (a better, larger (this one is 3x5), one will be made eventually, based on this.) so I can keep my directions and country names straight:

Dies is still ahead 2 - 1. Will there be a game 5?

One Hour Wargmes Medieval : Changes for Next time

As I was clicking around reading blogs (I check for people posting new stuff several times a day and when that fails, I just start looking at "most popular posts" and following links), I found that  Alex addressed many of  the grey areas in the OHW Medieval rules in a post on his Spear to Strife blog in 2017, followed by a version of the rules featuring his own clarifications integrated into them.

Image from Friday night's battle. I use three colors of dice - green for the first 6 hits, yellow for the second 6 hits, and red for the last 3.

The biggest thing that was bothering me was what constitutes contact for melee purposes. I have been saying any contact at all, even a corner on the flank edge for example, would be enough for the devastating flank bonus. But even as I ruled that was the case, a corner contacting an edge didn't visually look enough like charge into melee and didn't sit right with me.

Having read Alex's posts and thought about it a bit more (and given my use of 4" square bases) I will use contact/overlap-with-half of the edge (he suggest 3" in his version of NT's rules linked above and that's probably better, but I'll start with half, or 2" in my case)  as indicative of melee being reached. Thus, a corner making contact alone would not be enough, nor would contact with the enemy's corner alone.

I can recall clearly instances where this would have slowed the destruction, as units would have had to moved to a better position before they charged into an enemy's flank, or they may even have lost the flank advantage entirely, as the enemy could have gained an opportunity to rotate to meet the threat. Would this have changed the outcome of  either game? I don't know.

His use of just two movement rates will be taken wholesale into my game.

There's a typo in the Kindle edition I have, where  the movement rates for the Medieval rules reflect the unit types of an earlier rule set. So, infantry, skirmishers and warband, and cavalry are given rates rather than men-at-arms, archers, knights, and levies, and you're left to figure out which should get what. I was allowing levies 9" but had no particular justification (remember, the bulk of what I know of the history for this period, comes from Neil Thomas's chapter preceding the rules).

Both of these will eliminate some grey areas that took me out of the game and into the rulebook (which, seems silly given how few pages the rules are).

One Hour Wargames: Down at the Crossroads (scenario 11)

Following their victory near the border between Eastern and Western Aurora, the Duke of Lux, vassal of Sol, King of Dies, crossed his army into Western Aurora, intent on capturing a major crossroads that would give him access to all of Aurora. He did not expect to encounter any resistance from the Nox forces, as they had been observed moving deeper into Western Aurora back towards their own border.

For his part, the Duke of Tenebris, in service to Luna, Empress of Nox, had left a small holding force East of the crossroads to cover their withdrawal, but he had little reliable information about the movements of the Dies army.

Initially confusion reigned  and some doubt from the Nox holding force about their life choices, and neither side was able to effect much of anything. A lone rider from the holding forced raced Westward to alert the the commander for the Nox rear guard.

Meanwhile, the aggressive commander of the the Dies vanguard charged with his main body of knights and the sounds of a bloody battle rang out through the woods. A third unit of knights, and their men-at-arms, made their way around the Northern woods, intent on outflanking the enemy.

Alerted by the rider, the commander of the Nox rear guard sent two units of knights to join the fray. They arrived in time to intercept the flanking Dies units - but it was still too late, as their own holding force had crumbled.

Then, too, the reinforcements were overwhelmed.

Having driven the enemy from the field, the crossroads belonged to Dies, but a second wave of Nox reinforcements arrived from the Southern road.

Outnumbered and facing two units of well armored men-at-arms,  the odds were not in favor of the new arrivals. Indeed, the Nox archers managed to get off  just a single volley before being charged.

When the dust settled, Dies had uncontested control of the crossroads and access to all parts of Aurora.

Suffering a second defeat, the Duke of Tenebris lead the remnants of the Nox army in a further withdrawal deeper into Western Aurora, and closer to the border with Nox itself. Certainly, his queen would be forgiving of one loss. She would be less so about this one. A third loss would come at a great personal cost.

The Duke of Tenebris entered his tent that night with much on his mind.


*****
This is scenario 11  from Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames, "Surprise Attack".

Nox was Red, Dies was Blue.Because I use 4" squares and the Blue army arrives via the road on turn 1, I extended one dimension by 6", to fit them all on the table on the first turn. So the table was 36" x 42". I went with the forces I rolled - which was unfortunate for Nox - they really could have used two units of men-at-arms.

Once again the rules used were the medieval rules from that book.

This time the game went all the way to turn 14, although the conclusion was obvious from turn 8 when the Dies army eliminated the last of the Nox units on the table and could leisurely wait for the last two Nox reinforcements to arrive on turn 9. That two of the four remaining Dies units were men-at-arms further cemented the likelihood of their victory (half damage). Even when they lost their last unit of knights, they were in no real danger of losing the battle over all.

I debated including the archers in the initial force on the table - thinking perhaps they could weaken one of the knights in front. That may have been a better option - saving them to mop up was far too optimistic.

I do wonder how much a 4' x 4' table would have changed things : I think the archers would have gotten off two volleys at least.

This time not being able to leave the scrum was less of an issue because there wasn't a single focal point of the game - although I suppose the crossroads could be if the Blue army chooses to completely by-pass the Red units blocking the road. Instead, there was some movement, with the Blue army flanking the woods and the Red army riding to meet them, while a battle raged by the woods.

I used the same solo chance mechanism this time as last. Again I played both sides, and again Nox was my side, so the chance events favored Dies.

Also, because this is a campaign, I gave one unit of the Dies army a 1d3 hit bonus because Dies won last time, and one unit of Nox a 1d3 hit penalty because Nox lost - which units received the adjustments was  randomly determined.

The next scenario is "Static Defense" and so I will play the Nox force as they are the attackers and have more interesting choices. Since we are closer to the border now, Nox they will have one unit with a 1d3 bonus, to represent an influx of troops over said border, but they will again have a unit with a 1d3 penalty (because they lost). The Dies army will have a single unit with a 1d3 bonus.

One Hour Wargames: War Comes to Tempus

The land of Tempus has long been the stage for the bitter rivalry between two countries, Dies and Nox. Independent buffer states - Aurora, Mane, Vesperum, and Nocte, - sprang up in the distant past and have variously served to cool or exacerbate the tempers of the dominant pair. Presently, it is a time of the latter, and the uneasy truce in their war over control of the continent has come to an end yet again. This time, it is hapless Aurora that is caught in the middle.

The Duke of Lux, vassal of Sol( the King of Dies, also known The Sun King (not that one)), having raised an army at his king's behest, advanced this force into Aurora under diplomatic pretense. However, such is the nature of courtiers and intrigues that Luna, Empress of Nox, Queen of the Night (not that one), quickly learned of the deceit. In turn, she commanded the Duke of Tenebris to raise a force and prepare to meet the threat.

With a preternaturally prescient understanding of the situation, Lux ordered an advance guard to race to, and take control of, a strategic hill overlooking the main road between Eastern and Western Aurora. The remainder of the holding force would follow.

The Nox army under Tenebris moved eastward into Aurora, where, it comes as no surprise, the leading elements of the force collided with Lux's avant garde.

And so it was that the inevitable new war began.

The Nox knights were ordered to dislodge Lux's units from the hill as quickly as possible in hopes of controlling it before the remainder of the Dies force arrived.

A maelstrom of clashing steel, men, and horses swirled about the hill.

The new arrivals for Dies charged into the fray, with a unit of knights held back and ordered to run down the Nox archers - who, it may be said, had quite literally become a thorn in their side.
.

Flaunting a previously captured banner of Nox, the knight's charged. They would pay dearly for their indiscretion.

Men fell and fled on both sides, but the scale of victory tilted heavily towards Dies.

The last of  the remaining Nox units fought fiercely, but in the end, they were outfought by the Dies men serving under Lux.

But, to be sure, the war had only just begun.


*****

This is scenario four, "Taking the High Ground" from Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames, The rules used are the medieval rules from the same book.

As I have noted before, I know little to nothing of the period, so I find these rule adequate (with OHW I think the more invested in a period you are, the less satisfying the rules will be, without making at least some adjustments for your pet aspects of the period) - they do tend to lead to a scrum, since units can't leave melee once engaged and forces will have at least 4 melee units. However, a large scrum of warriors is what Hollywood tells me is period correct, and I assume at least some of the writers have done the research, so it works for me. Heaven help me if I read an Osprey on period tactics though.

The main thing I have to remember with OHW is to not think I have the rules internalized - it's too easy to forget a modifier when you're a little rusty (+2 for shooting with archers for example). The other is that that men-at-arms on a hill are really hard to beat (they take 1/4 damage).

Of the other rules I have, I am most intrigued by Charlie Wessencraft's medieval rules in Practical Wargaming but that would require re-basing (as these are just Blu-Tacked to coasters it's not that big of a deal but never the less). Morschauser's shock rules could work if I used single figure "trays" and used say, 4-6 trays per unit, as the melee rules are truly brutal there.

Other areas of note:

The game officially ended on turn 10 but I could have called it on turn 7 or so, when the Nox force only had two units left. This is typical of OHW - games in my experience rarely last until 15 turns. Total time for setup and tear down was about an hour.

I played both sides and used the same solo mechanism I used for the Morschauser game the other day, because I was rooting for Nox. It clearly worked well in that "my" side lost.

The next scenario will be number scenario 11, "Surprise Attack".

Plastic Medieval Russian Flats

If you haven't seen this post on the estimable The Duchy of Tradgardland, you should go there first.

In the comments, I mentioned I had some medieval chaps of the same Russian-made sort, but featuring Teutonic knights and Russian knights. As there's no easy way to share pictures in comments, here we are.

Before continuing, I feel I should acknowledge that I suppose it's possible the Teutonic knights are in fact, Livonian, but that's neither here nor there.

I acquired a few packs of these several years ago and other than a few test paint jobs, which I never completed, they have languished, save for a few undocumented games of Songs of Blades & Heroes. Neither force is large enough presently for much else.

Without further ado:

The two armies.

The only painted figures of the bunch.

The Teutonic knights

The Russian knights.

There is a lot of action in these poses despite being flats (or are they semi-flats?) and I think they make quite a nice visual display, even in their Christmas-colored underwear.

The figures are a very hard plastic, have no flash, and quite minimal mold lines. Only the injection point serves to blemish them.

I was unable to find identical sets for sale currently, but there are similar sets floating about.

Filling the Ranks

These 17 Deetails archers - a decent ebay deal that I wasn't looking for - arrived today:

The silver ones in particular need some touching up - particularly their helmets. I will be splitting these between my two armies, who should be making their way back onto the table soon enough with the One Hour Wargame rules (because I know little to nothing about the period, and thus have no expectations, the rules suit me fine.)

I also finished these last night (except for the gloss coat) in a flurry of painting activity:

These are Chinese Airfix knock-offs that I got from Classic Toy Soldier.They have heavy mold lines and a lot of flash. I did a better job cleaning this lot up than the last Germans I did, but I still didn't do a great job. 

The grenade thrower is one of my favorite poses. The other guy looks really stiff in comparison.

I have a pile of Russians on the paint table now - two are primed and painting has begun, but the rest await clean up. 

I find myself being distracted by a new project idea  that I'm doing my best to ignore but we'll see how that goes!