Rampant, but not relevant

I shall be using Lion Rampant rules for the siege game on the table for no better reason than they're what the article in MW is written around. I have forgotten pretty much everything I ever knew about LR, so thought it worth listing what I think I remember before reading them again. Apart from anything else it's an entry for the most pointless rules review ever. What I am describing is the first edition and the second edition is being published literally next Thursday. So, please ignore what follows.

Haven't got it

I don't think I bought the first edition, I'm pretty sure James passed them onto me having received them from Osprey in return for doing something or other. We had a couple of games and my memory tells me that most of the problems were self inflicted. There was no particular issue with using figures grouped on stands rather than single bases, or with the bookkeeping side of the game. I vaguely recall quite liking the combat resolution element, but I seem to remember being dissatisfied overall because:

• The playing area was too big. The book suggest 6ft x 4ft, but says smaller would work. My table is 2.5m x 1.5m, we used essentially the whole thing, but everything was too far apart and it took far too long for anything to happen. There's an activation mechanism which provides a nice fog of war, but also slows things down on its own without adding in an oversize table as well. For this game I shall use 120cm x 90cm.
• There wasn't enough terrain on the table. As I digression I've always found it a bit of a paradox that the larger the scale of the combat being modelled the more the terrain is abstracted away and the table bare, while for smaller scales the opposite is true. Basically, I ignored my own rule of thumb, left big open spaces and it was all very uninteresting. So, put more stuff out this time.
• The 3" rule. There is a strict prohibition on units coming with 3" of each other, which we followed to the letter and which was a monumental pain in the arse without seeming to have any upside to compensate. Subsequently I saw a group playing the rules at a show and they ignored this rule totally, and, who'd have guessed, nothing bad happened. This rule is in the bin.

There you go, a list of the things I probably did wrong, but possibly may not have, quite a few years ago with a set of rules that have been updated since anyway. This blog remains at the cutting edge. 

More Rampant Ramparts

 Having bigged up the 'Lion Rampart' article in the July Miniature Wargames I do have a slight complaint: it was a tad vague on one detail. "Surely not," I hear you cry "wargames rules that are ambiguous? Say it ain't so!". The issue relates to what I see as the key difficulty with gaming a siege on the tabletop, namely that sieges are clearly campaigns. They go on for a long period, with happenings in slow time punctuated by happenings in quick time. If one wishes to get all one's toys out on display - and what else are they for? - then one ends up with the table being the map and the map being the table. 

This typically means that the slow-time stuff works fine, but there is a problem when we need to move to the quick-time stuff, typically assaults and sallies. The 'Vauban's War' answer to this is to pretend there isn't a difference and that one can just switch to a tactical ruleset and carry on. This was so obviously bollocks that we didn't even try it. Instead I quickly knocked up an abstract high-level set using C&C dice, but they haven't been used to date because in our playtests everyone seemed to prefer the grind of bombardment and starvation. I think that the answer to this dilemma which has been decided on by the author of 'Lion Rampart' is to admit defeat and put the toys back in the cupboard. A lot of action will be pen and paper until there's a need to set terrain up, get the little men out and play a scenario. I say that's what I think because it would seem implicit, but he never actually comes out and says it. 

It all makes sense, but I rather like the look of how my home made town and castle all looks and want to leave it set up to be admired, although admittedly only by me and the window cleaner. So, I've chosen to go for two 'tables' side-by-side. The first is the town and is the one on which the final assault (*) will be fought; the other is a space on which scenery will be set up and taken down to fight out the smaller actions along the way. I think this is not only aesthetically pleasing, but actually beneficial based on what I remember of how 'Lion Rampant' plays in practice. More of this in due course.

* And one thing I really like about these siege rules is that there will definitely be a final assault come what may.

Lion Rampart

 Last year we played some horse and musket siege games in the annexe using 'Vauban's Wars'. It was the publication of those which had led me to laser cut a fortress and take up resin casting in order to make some saps. That was all a bit of a digression from what I was previously doing, which was using the laser cutter to make myself a modular castle and some town walls. That in turn had been driven to some extent by having owned models of medieval siege equipment for years and never really having got them on to the table.

My attention was therefore caught by an article by David Hiscocks in the July issue of Miniature Wargames entitled Lion Rampart, described as a siege campaign for Osprey's 'Lion Rampant' rules. I had briefly thought about trying to rejig VW for an earlier period, but had abandoned the idea as those rules are definitely written for the age of a structured and scientific approach to siege warfare. However, having read and played them was good background to reading this article because I could see how he was attacking the same challenge, but had come up with a very different approach. I was sufficiently impressed to think about trying it out. I've had a bit of a play around and have come up with the following:

I'll do another post as to how I ended up with that layout and what the marked off area is all about. Note that the sun is still shining in West Yorkshire despite it being late July.

Don't enquire too closely into the period or the place; let's just say late medieval, somewhere in Western Europe.

The Second SoN

 We played the second half of our initial Soldiers of Napoleon game last night. I don't own a copy of the rules, but both James and Mark do. When I arrived they were both observing that they had re-read them since the previous Wednesday and were engaging in mutual congratulations as to how we had got absolutely everything correct despite it being the first game. Now, one doesn't have to be as big a cynic as me to realise that this was all a bit of a hostage to fortune. Inevitably enough, a series of errors became steadily apparent throughout the evening: saving throws against artillery (there aren't any), what happens when you fail to pass a morale test to charge home (you fire instead, which I rather liked without being able to justify it thematically), the way reserves arrive (not intuitive at all, but makes sense once we'd bothered to read it), and too many others to mention. In the end we called it a draw and decided to start again next week. Mark and I had nearly won by then by throwing everything into a cheesy attempt to achieve one of our hidden objective cards and accept that quite a few units would evaporate in the process. It came down to the need to throw a 4,5 or 6. I threw a 2.

James wondered whether the rules had been written around how the playtesting group played the game rather than it being fully thought through as to how anyone picking them up cold would do it, which I thought was quite astute. But, having said that, we all changed our approach over the two evenings and no doubt will do so even more next week. We're going to try the big battle rules - main difference apparently being that each player has their own hand of cards - and use a larger playing area. I hope we drop the 'How Goes the Day?' bit, because it's pants; not the idea as such, just the manifestation of it.

Ooh, Mr Grimsdale

 I have stayed away from commenting on the current Tory leadership contest because it's obvious they're all headbangers without me having to point it out. However I do need to draw your attention to a letter in the Yorkshire Post earlier this week which declared: "Rishi Sunak should not be allowed to stand for Conservative Party leader because he wears Norman Wisdom suits".

"The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously."

I get free access online to the Yorkshire Post through membership of The Leeds Library. Perhaps more surprisingly membership also allows me to read Miniature Wargames for nothing. An article in the July edition has unexpectedly led to a burst of activity in the wargames annexe. I hope to post about it here soon.

Lukewarm

 And I'm not talking about the weather which, at nineteen degrees and raining, is about par for high summer in a normal year in the lower Wharfe valley. Last night there was a full turnout in the legendary wargames room: Peter (*), James (**), Mark (***) and me. We had a first game of 'Soldiers of Napoleon', a new set of rules which are creating a bit of a buzz.

And the verdict: they were all right. I got the impression that the others were more enthusiastic than I was, but it all has to be interpreted in the context of us almost certainly not playing them correctly on this first occasion. I like a card driven game, so that aspect was good. It uses a system whereby each card can be used in a variety of ways, but only one can be chosen each time you play it. It's a very common mechanism in boardgaming, but I'm not sure whether I've ever come across it in wargaming before. I also quite liked the relatively simple idea it uses to encourage one to switch successive activations from one command to another. Combat resolution seemed very bland and I was bemused by artillery being so underpowered and vulnerable on a Naploeonic battlefield. The biggest disappointment was the much vaunted 'How goes the day?' concept of one playing a small section of a larger battle with what happens elsewhere affecting what's happening in your sector. All it actually amounts to is rolling dice every turn and the winner getting some victory points.

We shall carry on next week, with the biggest challenge being to stop James introducing house rules before we've even finished the first game.

* Who I'm very pleased to say looked well after an unavoidable absence.

** Who seemed a bit out of sorts; perhaps it was the heat.

*** Who was wearing shorts. I know one can't expect everyone to live up to my standards - I always wargame in a tie and sleeveless sweater - but really!

How rude so'er the hand

 I like getting questions about blog postings, despite them usually being along the lines of "Why do you bother?" or "I suppose you think you're funny?". I am glad to say that I have received one which is marginally more constructive, an observant reader asking why I spelled 'gaily' as 'gayly' in the title of the previous post. Don't blame me, blame Sir Walter Scott. The quote comes from his narrative poem 'The Lady of the Lake'. I haven't read it - Scott is one of those authors who I firmly intend to read when the time is right, but as to when that time might be I can't say - but I have just been to a performance of Rossini's 'La donna del lago'.

The lady and, believe it or not, the lake

I'd never seen it before, and have read various theories as to why it isn't put on more often: either the staging and set requirements are too demanding or it's difficult to assemble the combination of voices needed seem to be the favourites. This production was a bit odd, but the music and singing was excellent and I enjoyed it thoroughly. 

The oddities included archaeologists and museums, neither of which appear to feature in Scott's original and no kilts or tartan, both of which certainly (*) did. The driver of the plot is the apparent real-life tendency of James V to wander around in disguise. He was, of course, the father of Mary Queen of Scots, but if you can guess 16th century from the pictures then you're doing better than me. The chap on the chair is the baddie, who bears the fine Scottish name of Rodrigo, and as whom John Irvin stole the show, brilliantly portraying the character's MacHeath-like psychopathic tendencies. The eponymous lady was wonderfully sung by Máire Flavin, whose Violetta for Opera North this autumn I am very much looking forward to.

* For 'certainly' read 'probably'; hard to know for sure without putting in the effort of actually reading it.

Gayly to Burgeon

 I've been away again, this time to here amongst other places:

I may write about my experiences if the next few days are as doubleplus scorchio as we are being promised, meaning that I have to skulk indoors to keep cool.

In the meantime, here is my old mate Robb Johnson with his view of recent events:

Advance Guard Action Action Report

I am motivated to put finger to keyboard by James having done the same. His report on last week's game is here. He draws attention to the luck inherent in the scenario having rather swamped the luck inherent in the game. However, he was also spot on in saying that it was a good and entertaining evening. Fortune swung backwards and forwards and I wasn't that far off winning before anybody's reserves had turned up.

In fairness though, that last bit is actually a negative. Having broken the British cavalry division with my own cavalry charge (basically by dint of good dice rolls), I only had to break one more division to win. One of the infantry divisions attacking the town hadn't started with much morale and so, once it was clear I was going to lose the town anyway, I made an assault which, had it succeeded, would have won me the game. My estimate was that I only had about a twenty five percent chance of success, but as I know that I have mentioned before, the morale rules currently being used in the Peninsular games do very much encourage cheesy play.

Anyway, I probably deserved to lose because I tried to - and indeed did - capture both objectives, but in doing so left myself so stretched that I couldn't realistically have hoped to hold either for the remainder of the eight turns required. We're having another crack this week with a revised scenario and slightly altered terrain. I've been offered my choice of sides. I think I might stick with the French and try a more measured strategy; or will I?