Morale and the Italian Army During the First World War

 I recently finished reading Morale and the Italian Army During the First World War by Vanda Wilcox. 

Looking back at my blog, I see that I acquired it a little over a year ago, just before I traveled for my dad's funeral. I started to read it at some point - I don't think it was on that trip despite my intentions, but I did start it earlier this year. 

And then stopped - no fault of the book, I just had too many other books going at the same time. In fact, once I started it this time around, I found it difficult to put down.

(for the tl;dr you can scroll down to the Conclusion section)

Why the (mostly) peasant soldiers fought at all, often with valor, for years, in terrible conditions, is one thread driving the inquiry of this book. The other thread being the converse - what drove these men to perform acts of indiscipline, when they otherwise tended to be resigned to do what they were ordered or what duty commanded, 

Recall that Italy had only been a united country for a little over 50 years at the time. 

Duty was owed to the farm, the family, the Church, and the village long before it was ever owed to the state. Indeed, peasant males had only been granted the right to vote in one election prior to the war (I may be quoting the number incorrectly, but it wasn't much more if not just one). It is on the negotiation of this complex web of expectation and duty that Wilcox focuses. 

To facilitate the examination of the factors involved, the book is helpfully split into two parts.

The first looks at the role of systems external to the soldier - the military organization itself and the society in which it, and more importantly, the soldiers, existed. Official histories and studies of morale and discipline form the bulk of the footnotes here. 

The second part deals with the internal - the psychology and personal beliefs of the soldier - and how they see things themselves (which, of course, is deeply effected by the military and the society from which they come), supported by heavy reliance on  diaries and letters.

Throughout the book, the Italian army (both its policies but also the psychology of the soldiers) is compared and contrasted to other armies during the same period. If your primary interest is in another Entente or in one of the Central Power armies, they probably make more than one appearance either in the main text or in one of the many footnotes. 

Not surprisingly, Italy's draconian system of discipline doesn't come out unscathed and not just in hindsight. Compared to the other nations in the war, the Italian approach to morale and discipline throughout much of the war was unenlightened and inconsistent at best.

Cadorna - who blames socialism and defeatism in the ranks for failures of command - gets a fair amount of well-deserved criticism, while Diaz, unsurprisingly, receives a more positive assessment (though he doesn't escape criticism). This is pretty standard - although I know he has his supporters, no author I have read has praised Cadorna without reservation. On the other hand, Diaz often gets plenty of praise and back slapping simply for not being as inhumane as Cadorna (a low bar if ever there was one).

At times, the text is academic (i.e., dry) but still eminently more readable than most Osprey titles in my opinion, and I am inclined to seek out other works by the author as I find their tone and writing style suits me.

The bibliography is vast and varied, and I've already been looking out for copies of the English-language titles.

Unfortunately, for me and anyone else who does not read Italian, many, if not most, of Wilcox's sources are written in Italian, even excluding the personal diaries and private letters which are obviously so. Despite the limits this imposes on my follow-up reading, I find this citation of a mass of Italian-language sources lends additional credence to the arguments Wilcox makes.

Conclusion

In case you're wondering if this is a book for you: 

For a wargamer, there is little here directly applicable to most wargames' tables. The one exception I can come up with is through the use of chance cards, which could bring in morale effects thematically tied to reasons given in the book. But you probably don't need this book to imagine some of them.

If your interest in WWI is casual or at a higher level - the causes and effects of the war generally, big personalities, major battles - or you are hoping to find a source of scenarios for a wargame, this book is not for you.

However, if you're interested in the discipline and morale questions of "what makes soldiers follow orders" or conversely "what makes soldiers act with indiscipline" with or without emphasis on the Italian army of WWI, there is something here for you.

If you, like me, are invested in learning about the Great War as fought on the Southern Front, and you've already read one of the many overview books on the subject (if, for example, Caporetto is news to you, perhaps don't start with this title), then this is a must read for a deeper dive.

 

More Fantasy Figures from the Pile of Plastic

I have been enjoying painting of late and so I continue digging into the pile of Reaper minis I have and painting whatever looks interesting. There's no particular plan for the figures - they were acquired (and used for years unpainted) for role-playing games and they still serve that purpose. However, they can easily form into Age of Fantasy warbands or maybe even Song of Blades and Heroes (which I haven't played in a long time).

The paint jobs aren't spectacular, but they represent a growth in my painting techniques. And you can see, now that I have a formula for black highlighting I intend to use it everywhere! 

Give a man a hammer and the world becomes a nail!

I used to spend a lot of time going to goth clubs. She looks like someone I used to see out at the club and so I painted her that way. I wanted to do something more cyber-gothy with her hair, but I don't have any neon paints.

"Gotta keep movin, gotta keep movin', hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail"

Waaaggghhh!

The G.O.A.T.

Harryhausen-esque Number 2 .Metal not plastic like the above. Ral Partha not Reaper. I believe the date on the base was 1991 or 1993. I forget and it's glued down now.

The shading (either Army Painter Strong Tone, Citadel's Agrax Earth Shade, or Citadel's Nuln Oil) leaves a gloss behind, and is visible mostly in the deeper recesses where shadow should be. I recently picked up some matte varnish in hopes of dulling the shine on since it looks odd that the shadows are shiny.

I did a test run on an older glossy 28mm figure and it worked a treat, so I'll apply it to these eventually.

Age of Fantasy in the Lost World

As an experiment, I decided to try using Age of Fantasy (AoF), with Lizards vs. French Foreign Legion. I have used the Lizardfolk with AoF before, using the Saurian list. For the French, I found I could make use of the Duchies of Vinci list - treating rifles as crossbows. 

Terrain was randomly determined and deployed. I used the typical AoF "capture objective markers" victory conditions. Not great from a narrative perspective, but it works for a one-off just fine.

Geckos advanced through jungle.

Two units of French Foreign Legion, classed as City Guard, plan to seize the hill (there's an objective marker there)

Three Legionairre sharpshooters (classed as a Sniper unit) take position on the Legion left.

The artillery unlimbers and deploys (Carro Armato for AoF)

Gecks supported by a spinosaurus with its priest rider (walking today) advance towards the French snipers (and an objective in the difficult ground)

An overview at the end of turn 1

A unit of Geckos crashes into the French artillery!

Another overhead shot - end of turn 2. The French have the hill well in hand - having eliminated most of the Lizard archers (classed as Chameleons). The snipers are threatened. Both sides control one objective.

The French Captain shoots and kills the Gecko Champion Chief, having wounded him previously.

The Gecko Champion Shaman fells the captain with a single magical strike (the captain failed to block all three hits)

The shaman makes a gamey move and takes the center objective. A large scrum develops around the French artillery position at the end of turn 4. Neither side scoring decisive melee attacks. The judges review the scoring...

In AoF a regular game ends after four turns. The Lizards controlled two objectives to the French one. Victory to the Lizards!

An enjoyable outing that proved I can use AoF for my VSF/Lost World adventures. 

However, I messed up with the Carro Armato and didn't realize it had a tough (9) rating. That works with the stegosaurus being the tow vehicle, but there's nothing in the stats that account for its attacks - only the cannon and autocrossbow (the Gatling). I need to rethink that.

From what I understand, Patreon supporters of the One Page Rules have access to a system to build their own units and determine points. That might be worth a small donation on my part.

However, before I go that route, I think I may be able to port the magic system over to GASLIGHT, using the section on magic in the GASLIGHT Compendium as a guide. Certainly, it's worth a try. 

I'm also not sold on the objective markers/four turn limit for AoF. Of course, you don't have to use them, but in my experience, with the small points values of my battles, it's rare that both sides could continue past that anyway. 

Contemptible Little Armies and the Late Arrivals

I don't usually post so closely to a previous post, but I  have been playing Contemptible Little Armies (CLA) a lot, in an effort to really dive into the nuances that might be there.

I decided to play a One Hour Wargame (OHW) scenario squished to a 24" square, rather than the 36" usually used.

The scenario is 'Late Arrivals' which is one of my favorites and one I played before on a painted 24" "board" using the OHW 'Machine Age' rules and 3"-4" wide companies. That was, in hindsight, quite a bit of space for what amounted to a single battalion with support. I opted to use the same painted board (it's quick to set up after all)  this time, but with CLA.

WWI is notorious for crowded battlefields, especially early-to-mid-war. While dependent on the situation/terrain, generally speaking, as a rule of thumb, a battalion in WWI had the same frontage as a company in WWII( I found this article extremely helpful in visualizing the differences). Thus, the 24" area should force the issue.

Rather than the intended 1:1 figure-to-man scale, which, as I've mentioned before, doesn't make sense to me with the rifle range, I opted to take up the author on their suggestion that figures and units are what you want them to be, and to use three figures per company. This is similar to the 'Machine Age' game I linked to above, but with individually-based figures and multiple battalions per side.

According to at least one source (H.M.G. by Agema) the Bersaglieri have three companies per battalion, so they field nine figures, while the Austrians have four companies, totaling 12 figures. 

Coincidentally, points-wise, which is something CLA has, it gives me 81 points for the Bersaglieri (9 points each) and 84 for the Austrians (7 points each). Really closely balanced by accident. 

And since the Bersaglieri have fewer men per company and a smaller number of companies per battalion, I feel like the equal-ish points reflects the "elite" nature of the Bersaglieri.

I'm using a 40 or so yards per inch based on some really iffy back-of-the-napkin math. Does it matter? No. Although the 12" range makes a whole lot more sense this way.

In any case, the scenario has three battalions of Austrians attacking with two battalions up and one following attacking on a 960 yard front, supported by a field gun unit and an MG unit. attacking a single Italian Bersaglieri battalion, with all three companies in the line (which was pretty typical of the Italians and a source of much dissatisfaction for the troops), with MG support holding a trench line some 640 yards long. The Italians have two battalions and a field gun unit in reserve. The commanders on both sides are starting off table.

In my head I was thinking the 1916 Strafexpedition  but it could just as easily be 1917 Caporetto or 1918 Asiago - admittedly the later dates would invite stormtroops and arditi.

I have played this *many* times now for testing the rules. Here is but one of those:

The lead Austrian battalion advances using the road. Unfortunately for the following units, it's moving kind of slow - road congestion is real!

Turn 5: A second battalion of Bersaglieri arrive to hold the village.

Turn 5 still, the first Austrian battalion has nearly disintegrated against the Italian defenses while whittling the defenders down. The 2nd battalion has finally moved into a position to engage the defenders on the left. The 3rd battalion arrives on the Austrian right to follow up the 1st battalion's efforts.

Turn 6, a jubilant Italian field gun arrives on the scene. For the Italian arrivals, used a CLA suggested rule for reserves to arrive and diced vs their morale. They failed the check on turn 5, but passed on turn 6.

The Austrians attack the trenches. Chaos ensues.

The trench is captured!

A third Bersaglieri battalion arrives in time to draw some of the attackers away from the village.

Side view of same - so you can see the Austrian field gun on the table shooting away, hitting nothing.

Both sides suffered tremendous losses but the Bersaglieri held off the attack. As the Austrians still hold the trench line (barely) a counter-attack (and Austrian reinforcements) would be a likely follow-up.

Interestingly enough - in every replay of this scenario, the game went to at least 13 turns and went to 15 on more than one occasion. It's rare that I go beyond 10-12 turns playing OHW rules. Play time was about an hour including picture taking. I know most of the basic rules by heart so I rarely need to look at the QRS even, and that helps keep the time spent playing.

It's also a scenario where rarely does the attacker win (when I play).

The playing area looked pretty congested which is what I expected and it felt accurate that way. Road congestion was a pretty common occurrence. The variable movement rate in CLA really added some pressure to the Austrian cause - and I found myself focused on getting units to where they needed to be and out of the way of the units following so that I could bring the full force to bear. 

The ticking time clock of the turn counter though forced some decisions, like attacking on the right before the unit on the left was even in position. The benefit there would have been the Italian unit would be losing figures from a single unit, thus forcing morale checks potentially earlier and more often. Although it would have brought the Italian MG into play sooner.

The MG unit in CLA is much more effective than the Heavy Infantry of OHW, and silencing it as soon as possible is a pressing issue once it starts shooting. It rolls 6 dice, and the Austrians are hit on a 3 or higher. The woods only provide a -1 benefit when checking for figure removal (4+ is required normally, so 5 or 6 with the bonus), so MGs cut down the Austrians pretty fast. You can't spend all day plinking away at the MG unit from the woods, hoping to score a removal.

On the plus side of that equation (the one where Austrians are easy to hit), 12-figure units stretched my force capacity and were it not for recycling losses into later arriving units, I could not have fielded three Austrian units. It looks like getting another bag of figures from Armies in Plastic will top my 2024 shopping list.

The next step for CLA for me is to incorporate off-table artillery fire for both sides.

An Unexpected Burst of Painting Enthusiasm

There was a flurry of painting last week and over the weekend. I'm not sure where the motivation came from but I figured I should ride the wave.

I've been digging into my pile of Reaper Bones figures from their first Kickstarter lo those many years ago (I sold off most of them, but still have  50 or 80 or something like that) looking for figures that would be fun to paint, but also to game with.

First up is a pair of figures, their color schemes inspired by The Maxx and Julie Winters:

The Maxx was a comic book in the 90s, which I vaguely recall seeing - at the time it came out, I was in college and spent my money at bars, not comic shops though. However, I did watch the series of shorts that aired on MTV's Oddities at the time.

Here's a grab from one of the comics:

His pointy finger claws are bright yellow - the scene above makes them appear orange, but trust me, they are yellow.

In addition to the first Kickstarter Reaper did, I also purchased select sets when they had their second Kickstarter - specifically I purchased the beastmen. Here are two, with a devil/demon/succubus from the first set (all started and completed over the the last week)

I had originally thought to paint the goat-men like my hero, Black Phillip (from The Witch) but decided to lean into their slight resemblance to the Games Workshop Khorne Bloodletters that I want to pick up eventually - but were it not for my moratorium on figure purchases for the rest of the year.

A victory was achieved in painting these three - I learned how to paint black hair beyond just slapping on black as I am want to do. I watched a YouTube short and used it for ideas.

The basing gave me some fits - all five figures have integral bases that are sculpted to varying degrees. I didn't think the textured base paint would like right with them - I needed something to make a more gentle rise to the figure. In the past I've done this with green stuff, but I'm out.

Finally, I decided to mix a sludge of PVA, old coffee grounds, and two shades of flock and spread the resulting paste on the bases, then re-dip the figure into the mixture to give the ground some depth.

It worked but I think it looks like ground black pepper. Oh well.

With the figures done, I couldn't let them just sit unused, so I broke them out for game of One Page Rules, Age of Fantasy: Skirmish. 

The human faction, led by Maxx and Julie fell far short of my 200pt minimum for the game, and so I filled the points with some friends for them,  painted about eight or so years ago - a Reaper barbarian and some Gripping Beast figures I had purchased when I thought I might try Saga. Although I have never used them for Saga, I have found they make great villagers/low-level NPCs/bandits/etc.

 In any case, they would soon find themselves facing a threat from  their nightmares.

The villagers spot an evil presence emerging from the woods in the distance!

 

The Devil's Daughter has come to collect on a misguided promise from a villager.

Beast-headed men, damned for eternity, chop their way through the village defenders, but Julie has something to say about that.

While Maxx engaged the monstrous brute, Julie unleashed a magical ass-kicking on the Princess of Hell, sending her back to her brimstone keep.

Victory to the good guys!

Not pictured, the barbarian got up from the ground and walloped the goat-men. 

Maxx had managed to drop the brute's hit points and with the Princess defeated, I figured the brute wouldn't stick around. So not quite knocked out, but Maxx was in a better place at the end of turn 4.

Plus by One Page Rules standard, the game ends after four turns. It's a weird rule and I'm inclined to ignore it most times, but most games do seem to be over by then anyway.

The game was a little over 200 points per side - you can have a fun game with low figure count and the One Page Rules. I felt like the magic rules were different than from when I last played, but I may have either been 1)doing it wrong in the past or 2) just don't remember them.

WWI Rules Review (Kind of, Sort of)

Following on yesterday's post, I wanted to put my notes on the WWI rules I've been playing with individually-based figures in one place, and thought I'd share them in case it helps anyone else. 

The rules I've been testing for WWI single-figure games are: Contemptible Little Armies, a WWI variant of Bolt Action, and, H.M.G. I still use Trench Hammer, and included it as well, for completeness's sake.

I want to play games with no more than say, 40 or so figures per side. Other that that, there is no methodology, no particularly consistent criteria, or anything like that.

While I list the pros and cons of each. these are relative to my idiosyncratic preferences, and what I remembered when I wrote this up - and I think that's important to remember.  

If you don't care about representing an Austro-Hungarian stormtrooper unit on the table, then you won't care about that pro or con. 

Although not listed below, I can and will, of course, still use One Hour Wargames (the 'Machine-Age' rules with my own modifications). Where one-base is a company, I feel it gives a decent feel for the period, and I can use the Austro-Hungarian stormtroops in a historically appropriate manner.

As they are typically played with multi-figure bases (I guess you could play with individually-based figures, but I have not), and I already know I like them, I saw no need to break them out for this post.

Finally, Too Fat Lardies is not represented - I have seen Through the Mud and Blood at the FLGS, but it seems like it's intended for closer to 100 figures per side (which is outside my scope at this time).

About the Sample Game

The sample game, as mentioned in my previous post, was small - smaller than any these rules are likely intended for. That was on-purpose.

I wanted to see how usable they are for games that are a too big for man-to-man using One Hour Skirmish Wargames, while getting a feel for the mechanisms. Heck, I didn't even put out any scenery for most of the games, I just played on the living room floor and used the edge of the area rug as a trench boundary.

The Italians had three infantry units (figure count varied based on the rule set) attacking one unit of Austro-Hungarians infantry (again, figure count varied per rule set) with MG support, defending a trench section. Thus, it could be a platoon to a regiment assaulting a trench held by anywhere from a section to a battalion.

Some games also included a single commander-type figure where the rules allowed for that.

Contemptible Little Armies 

This set has been around awhile, now in its 3rd edition, and is currently published by Rattrap Productions (the link is to the print edition but they also come in PDF format).

Although there are theater books, they are not required - the basics of most combatants are in the core rules. If you want more detailed suggestions/limits by year of conflict or theater, then they are worth grabbing. I have the book in print and the theater book in PDF and that works for me.

Pros -

• 1:1, yet author explicitly states units have no set figure count and can represent whatever you want. 10-12 figures is pretty common based on the various message board and blog posts I read.
• Wonderfully toy-soldier-esque design philosophy.
  
• Commander represented on table and has a role to play with regards to morale and orders
• Variable movement rate (as in roll dice, not just the result of terrain changes)
  
• Figures in unit don't have to do the same thing.
  
• Infantry may either move or shoot in a turn but not both (I know a lot of people don't like this sort of thing, but I do)
  
• Close Combat is by individual match-ups.
  
• Successive morale failures increase impact.
• 1st fail is just a marker.
  
• 2nd fail, unit can't advance
• 3rd fail, unit routes
• Air power is represented on-table.
  
• Written orders for attackers. (I think this is great for this era, especially the Italians, whose regular troops - as opposed to alpini or arditi - even in the later part of the war, don't seem to have operated with the independence seen in say, the British or German armies)
  
• Depending on what a unit represents, an Austro-Hungarian sturmpatrouille (9 men) or sturmcompany (two sturmpatrouille ) may be represented on table.
• Turn structure incorporates reaction fire without having to play both sides simultaneously.

Cons - 

• Weapon ranges are ... odd (People complain about Bolt Action ranges, but 12" for a rifle in a 1:1 game? This implies that maybe the game is aimed higher. Except 40" for an MG (which I believe accounts for indirect fire as well))
• Because individuals in a unit can do different things - you need to keep track of who moved and who didn't because those who moved can't shoot that turn.
  
• Units are what you want them to be but three infantry units tends to look like a platoon with too short rifle ranges, as much as they resemble a company, battalion, or regiment.
  
• Depending on what a unit represents, you may not be able to represent a sturmpatrouille (9 men) or sturmcompany  on the table-top but with very few figures and therefore very fragile.
• Every figure participating in combat rolls a die. That can be a lot of dice.
  
• Modifiers apply to results of shooting, so it is possible for "hits" to have no effect. (In practice, this is still enjoyable when the roll is to see how many of your side are removed and they escape danger. It's less enjoyable when it's to see how many of the other side will be removed.)

Bolt Action WWI Variant

I played the Bayonet & Spade variant available for free download: https://www.reddit.com/r/boltaction/comments/upp1y2/bayonet_spade_bolt_action_in_the_great_war_v05/

The other well-known WWI variant, the GAJO WWI rules for Bolt Action, are also free, but GAJO doesn't cover Italy or Austria-Hungary: http://www.gajominis.com/gajorules.html#baww1

Either requires the Bolt Action 2nd Edition rule book (available in print and PDF. I have the latter, I should have gotten the former).

Pros - 

• I love the initiative mechanism of drawing dice from a bag.
  
• The weapon ranges make sense to me (short-ish, but cinematic without seeming incongruent with what's represented)
  
• The ability for units targeted to receive fire to take a Down order if they haven't had any other order this turn and reduce the ability of the enemy to hit them. Great for troops crossing no-man's land!
  
• Units are HQ, single heavy weapons, or sections and make no claim otherwise
• Section minimums and maximums are given for most combatants.
  
• Units act as units not individuals, so you stay focused on managing the unit as a whole (you're generally in the platoon leader role, not the squad leader's role. Although I guess you can argue that the PL should be controlling fire-teams - like a lot of other WWII rules.
• It's like figures on a tray with individuals removed as shooting casualties.
  
• Independent leader figures provide additional initiative dice, allowing you a greater chance to act before the other side
  
• An Austro-Hungarian sturmpatrouille or sturmcompany can be modeled 1:1
• Modifiers apply to hit and hits result in pins, then check for figure removal. In other words, if you roll to hit, and you hit, SOMETHING happens to the target.
  

Cons - 

• Despite being 1figure = 1 man, units act as units. You can't detail some figures to fire and others to advance. This may not be so much of a con depending on the force you field and the era of the war. Still, Rommel's Infantry Attacks has plenty of examples where just a few men were detailed to something while the rest did something else, and he did this all war long. It seems unlikely he was the *only* person doing it.
  
• It's like figures on a tray with individuals removed as shooting casualties.
  
• Related to the above, total unit participation and destruction in close combat (If I am understanding the rules correctly, and I readily admit I may not be).
  
• Example: Italians had infiltrated an Austrian trench, and two Italians (at the front of a unit five figures strong by that point) made contact with the left-most two figures in a 10-strong Austrian unit in a line. All figures participate in close combat, and the losing SIDE (i.e. unit) is removed. Not unreasonable (if you imagine the forces running down the trench to fill in for their fallen comrades) but not as enjoyable and toy soldiery as figure vs figure for my money.
• If a unit on side A is given an Ambush order it requires remembering that and looking for opportunities to fire when activating side B units
• Every figure participating in combat rolls a die. That can be a lot of dice.
   

H.M.G.

This is PDF-only as far as I have found (available on Wargame Vault), although I imagine at one time it was a print product.

It's relatively inexpensive and more so if you wait for a sale, like the Wargame Vault Winter Offensive. The Agema website (they're the publisher) was apparently built in the 90's and has kept the same aesthetics since - sadly, H.M.G. is not listed there.

Pros - 

• Using ranges as written with 54s makes the table seem bigger but even doubled, they are fine.
• Units are companies (1:25 figure:man ratio) and the ranges work well with this. 
• Weapon ranges are more realistic than either of the other two rule books discussed here.
• Weapons have multiple range bands, so shooting at different distances is more or less effective
  
• Differentiation of weapon models is handled efficiently with #dice/figures shooting (example, the rifle used by the Italians has them roll 1d6 for every 3 figures, the rifle used by the Austrians let's them roll1d6 per 2 figures). This mirrors the effect rather than worrying about specifics of particular weapon models more typical of man-to-man rules.
  
• Close combat is figure vs figure.
  
• Force list of combatants is vast and varied, with number of figures per company varying per nationality and year of war. How accurate, I don't know.
  
• Turn structure incorporates reaction fire without having to play both sides simultaneously.  
• Morale check failure results vary based on troop quality and situation.
  

Cons- 

• Leaders have NO role and aren't represented on table at all. That just seems odd to me given the tight controls commanders kept on most of their troops for most of the war - at least on the Southern Front.
  
• A sturmpatrouille is too small to be represented at 1:25, a sturm company would be 1figure, which makes them unusable - a single hit would remove them, and assuming the same rifle as the regular army, they could not shoot as they would need two figures minimum to roll 1d6.
  
• Maybe differentiation of weapon models is too low-level detail? Even Bolt Action doesn't distinguish between makes of bolt-action rifle. Then again, you can argue that it's not about the details but the way it averages out, and 1d6 per X figures is more accurate in the aggregate.
  
• Modifiers apply to hit but all hits remove a figure. There is no variety in result.
• Troop quality is given but is only the starting point. Prior to the game you roll to see if it's higher or lower than indicated. Sounds great, except for those rated likely to route. They can be removed before the game even starts!
  
• Morale check failure results vary based on troop quality and situation. I doubt I'll ever remember the details.
  
• Morale checks are frequent (every turn a figure is lost).
  
• Air power is handled by dice, not models.

 

Trench Hammer

 

Trench Hammer has been featured on this blog a number of times before. It's available from Wargame Vault and is a bargain for what you get.

There is an expansion book as well, although it's not required. Many of its ideas are already appearing in the v2 of the main title (available when you purchase the main title).

Pros -

• Units represent sections, but can be called whatever you want and they still work. There is official precedent for this in the RCW variant.
  
• Figures-on-a-base but explicitly notes you can use single figures in groups of 5-6.
  
• When using single figures, you still track hits, not figure removal, so your toys stay on the table longer
• Overwatch is accounted for as part of the phasing side's actions - no need to have a split personality when playing solo.
• Commander represented on table and has a role to play with regards to morale and orders
• Using a leader to issue commands runs the risk of them being hit by a sharpshooter. 
• Weapon range is realistically unlimited on most tables, with a benefit for being in "firefight" range.
  
• Wide variety of unit types covered. 
• Single roll of the dice (just two!) to resolve a unit's action.

 Cons -

• When using single figures, you track hits, not figure removal. I'm sure there are good ways to track hits, but my units trail little dice all over the table.
• Units suffer penalties depending on how many hits they've taken - I can never remember the penalty levels.
  
• Units are either on the table or completely removed. Sometimes I prefer the toy-soldiery single-figure removal and seeing a unit degrade.
• Despite the claims many make about CLA for quick and bloody, no game of the sample scenario was as fast as Trench Hammer. 
• Not much in the way of force builder/army lists for different nationalities (given the limited coverage in English of either Italy or Austria-Hungary in WWI, while it's not necessary to have force lists, it could be helpful or at least, serve as a jumping off point)
  
• Air power isn't covered.
  

Conclusion: 

Unsurprisingly, none are perfect, all do different things better or worse than others. All issues could easily be house-ruled using mechanisms from the others.

And there's enough I like about each of them to make the choice difficult.

Do they all feel like WWI? I think so. Or at least, they don't feel like WWII. In fact, a lot of people say Bolt Action doesn't feel very WWII when playing WWII, so there's that. The real issue though isn't if they feel like WWI, but which part of the war? I'm not sure I feel like getting into that. I'll just say, they work well enough for the Southern Front - whether you want to play out scenarios from Hell in the Trenches or Many Wars Ago. 

Where they all will struggle or outright fail, like just about every set of rules, is small groups of soldiers taking on large groups, and  the small group dominates the battle (think Rommel and a few men with LMGs capturing a company of Italians, but also arditi and Austro-Hungarian stormtroopers, where 9 men capture entire battalions). I'll add that I don't think this is a flaw so much as a limitation of the medium. A role-playing game would handle this much better (Not D&D or another tactical game, but something more narrative).

CLA might be able to pull that off - if units are platoons, but you'd have to do something to make the smaller unit less fragile. I'd probably use GASLIGHT because in that game, I tend to treat single-figure units as one person while 10-figure units represent "a company" at 1:10 or 1:20 even. You also have options for heroes, saving throws, etc. I don't know why I do it that way, but it works for me in that game.

Back then to which rules will I use for WWI?

The issue as I see it is. do I choose one set and modify it, choose one and stick with it as is, merrily rotate through them but pending time relearning/house-ruling each time I switch rules, or do I make my own rules,which will likely be an amalgamation?

As I joked in my previous post, I guess I'll have to play more games to find out.

WWI Hobby Updates as Opposed to Updates on the Actual Event Which Ended a Long Time Ago

In between near constant D&D with my son (or that's what it seems like - we play a lot now. We just played four days in a row thanks to the Labor Day holiday weekend), I have been assembling and painting my WWI Germans to pit against my French. 

They are ICM WWI German Assault Troops in 1/35. As with Legos, I've discovered I enjoy putting figures together. Not painting them so much,but assembling them is relaxing.

To accompany the additional troops, I thought it was a good time to paint up another monster. I grabbed one from my plastic and lead pile (this one is metal!)

I have no idea who makes this figure - it was given to me six or seven years ago.

It has a very Ray Harryhausen look to it. I've painted it to the Games Workshop table-top ready standard. That is, base coats, wash, second base coat. I didn't do any highlighting on it. 

 

I have a second similar one on the paint table that is even more Hasrryhausen-esque.

 

I'm fairly certain this, and it's unpainted fellow, is intended for 28mm/Heroic 28mm use, but it works great with 1/35. Incidentally, this seems to be true of a lot of monster figures - they work as human-sized or slightly larger than human-sized in 1/35. They tend to be a little short compared to 1/32 to be intimidating unless there is a horde of them  (like my 28mm lizards).

In addition to painting, I've been playing lots of test games - having returned my WWI figures back to single-figure basing but still trying to reduce the playing surface - 24" square or 24" x 36"-ish playing areas. The rationale for the small area is that WWI units are more compact than WWII generally. A company in WWI has roughly the frontage of a platoon in WWII. I'm also not super interested in maneuver on the table - I can handle that off table on a map (any excuse to make a map is a good excuse)

For rules, I've been trying:

• Bayonets & Spades, a fan-made variant for Bolt Action 2nd edition, which you need as well to make use of the variant.
• Contemptible Little Armies 3rd edition (CLA going forward), 
• H.M.G. (by Agema). 

The scenario I have been playing is pretty small for any of those sets - a single unit of Austrian infantry and an MG hold a trench against an Italian assault of three units. Simple as it is, I enjoy it every time.

A turn or two into a Bolt Action WWI game. Both sides have suffered some losses. This is the first time I have added craters to no-man's land. They provide "soft" cover.

The unit sizes vary based on the rules. 

 

The Austrians use 10-figures in Bolt Action as the minimum for a section and nine figures for H.M.G. as a company. I use 10 for CLA  but it's not prescribed by the rules nor do the rules prescribe what the units represent - based on my research, 10-12 figures is pretty typical to represent everything from a section on up, with company and battalion being prevalent.

 

The Italians use 8 figures in Bold Action and H.M.G., for a section and company respectively, The minimum Italian section in Bolt Action is 5 figures for all but Arditi, who require 3 figures -I chose 8 because it looked better to my eyes and matches H.M.G. Speaking of, in H.M.G., 8 figures is a Bersaglieri company, a regular infantry company has 15 figures. Again I chose10 in CLA - for the same reason as I chose 10 for the Austrians.

Caught up in the action up close! Bolt Action again.

Similar moment from a CLA game.

CLA again, just because I love the coronet! (It looks to me like it has valves, making it not a bugle)

There are good things about each set of rules.

Worse, I enjoyed all of them! What a terrible poblem to have. 

I guess I'll just have to play more games.