Once More "Once More..."

 The second attempt at 'Vauban's Wars' was delayed slightly because, as I'm very pleased to be able to report, I have had a sore arm for a couple of days. In the interim I have received a parcel from Kallistra. I don't think that I had ever bought anything through the post from them before, having previously collected all my orders at shows, but it was as prompt and efficient as you would expect. The new arrivals were some half-hexes, enabling the glacis to take on a more regular form.

The photo reflects the end of the third turn, although turn two ended on a tied initiative dice roll and was very short. As you can see, the besiegers have developed a stretch of the second parallel and moved a siege gun forwards, albeit still too far away to breach the walls. The 'siege die' mechanism for sapping seems to work, although in a classic example of sod's law three of the first four rolls came up zero. The besiegers have lost half of their sappers to trench raids - by contrast, the garrison kept rolling 11 on a D12 - and may need to start using infantry as substitutes soon. Raiders also destroyed a gun emplacement, otherwise there would be two siege guns in the parallel.

I'm still not entirely sure that I'm doing it right, but it looks OK.

Tinywargames

I don't often mention it here, to the extent perhaps that newer readers may not even be aware of it, but I am actually rather interested in toy soldiers, wargames, modelling and so on. Several weeks on one's own unable to go out or see anyone should have been the ideal opportunity to engage in the hobby, but I have been somewhat busy doing other things. One of the paradoxes of life is that in order to be properly lazy you really have to work at it.

Anyway, all that may be about to change, because I have received a package in the post. At the beginning of March I visited the Overlord show in Abingdon. Among the traders that I don't see at northern shows was Tinywargames, who make mats. Following a useful chat at the time and an exchange of emails afterwards I ordered one. Immediately after that the country went into working from home mode and so I wasn't entirely surprised when it didn't turn up. However, I definitely let it slide for too long before chasing it up, which I only did last week. They sprang into action and the replacement, or possibly the package that had never been sent in the first place, arrived promptly. Either way, and especially in the circumstances, I'm more than satisfied with both the customer service and with the product.

I have been wanting some railway track to use with Square Bashing. I thought of buying a cheap toy train set - and one can get some ridiculously cheap ones - but the track in the ones I have seen is OO/HO gauge, which while it matches my 20mm figures doesn't suit the subscale terrain that I use with them. I then looked at N gauge track, but, contrastingly, that is ridiculously expensive, even second hand. The track on the mat that I have bought is a suitable size for what I want and came in a 1.7 metre strip on thin rubber, which lays very flat on top of the Hexon. When I have cut it up I shall have over 5 metres made up of various lengths. The only downside is that they will all be straight. However, as it's a grid based game I can't see that being a problem.

So, I am now enthused to see what it looks like in action by setting up a scenario. I think I know from where I can steal one, so more details to follow in due course.

Smallish game at a smallish show

So, to Fiasco. It seemed fairly well attended, especially during the morning and we fielded the usual large number of questions. Most of them were about either James' scratchbuilt buildings or the cloth. One or two people asked what rules we were using, but mention of Piquet didn't elicit any subsequent interest; trendsetters we aren't. We were putting on a fairly small game as James is being a bit dilatory on the Peninsular painting front. Anyway, it looked fine - not too crowded - and were able to play to a conclusion quite easily.

It was triumph for Wellington, but so it should have been. The scenario gave him a far better deck, command dice etc and my plan wasn't much more sophisticated than let's use our ability to move more often than the French to advance on a broad front and sweep all before us. The layout wasn't hugely different that that which we have played over over the last three weeks and the action ended up taking place on the same hill at one end of the table with, once again, a good proportion of each side's units not getting into action. It was a comfortable win and would have been even easier if I'd been paying attention; the French didn't perform too badly in the circumstances.

As for the rules:

• It's hard to judge the skirmish rules because nobody really did anything with them; although, let's be honest, that probably means they're not working.
• I liked the new rule that the first UI loss makes no difference to combat.
• I still don't like the town fighting rules, but have no better suggestions.
• The technique James has started using to encourage attacking (basically morale points for objectives, but with a twist) is excellent in principle, but the practical details don't seem to have been thought through.

Purchases were limited to what I had ordered in advance:

• Slopes from Kallistra; even small hills and ridges seem to require shed loads of the things.
• Gaullish chariots from Newline Designs; no explanation necessary.
• Bases from Warbases; the laser cutter I have access to will only be economic for bespoke items.

I didn't take any photos, but there are a couple of our game here, both of which are somewhat spoiled by the sight of yours truly leaning heavily on the table as if I have lost the ability to stand up straight. Mr Ashton is right about the lighting.

Skirmishers etc etc

James and I finished the game which had been delayed last week by the sudden appearance of the mad cat and the mad cat woman. I checked their location early on the day and they were apparently just outside Haworth (*), so it seemed that my kitchen was unthreatened. Just to be on the safe side I turned all the lights out mid-afternoon and sat quietly in the dark until it was time to go out.

Anyway, the game continued to be most enjoyable and ended in a fairly comprehensive victory for the British despite them having lost the entire brigade in their centre. At one point they held all four town sections of Momio Cochinello, but by the end not only had all four battalions fled the table, but they had lost their commander killed in action and his replacement killed before he got anywhere near the action. No battle honours for them. Other than long range and ineffective artillery fire there was no fighting at all on the British right, so totes kudos goes to the left flank. I, possibly for the first time in my entire wargaming career, held my cavalry in reserve until the auspicious moment, moved them to the appropriate place, charged them at the correct target at precisely the right time and won the day. I can promise that it won't happen again.

But what of the rules, you ask? They are still a work in progress of course. One problem seems to be that poor units are really, really poor and run away very easily. Part of the issue is that many of the rules are ported from the Seven Years War and in that units get a benefit from being in a linear formation. Napoleonic units didn't fight in that way or therefore get those benefits. Probably the simplest thing is to give them better morale to start with; after all one assumes that's why they were able to move on from fighting in long lines. As for the skirmish rules, I'm frankly not sure we were playing what was written down anyway. And there is still something not right about the town fighting rules.

In other wargaming news:

• I have been doing some painting. You will recall that I have bought some Roman Auxiliary reinforcements and so you will not be surprised that what is on the painting table is a unit of Napoleonic Prussian infantry.  
• I have acquired some Hexon rough ground on eBay. Second hand Hexon is usually too expensive to be worth buying once you take postage into account, but this was a reasonable price and I wanted some more for use with Square Bashing.
• I have gained access to a laser cutter, been fully accredited to use it, and am going to attempt to make, initially at least, some town walls to my specific design. It will be ten days or so before I am able to have my first stab - I am going on a cultural excursion to a secret and exotic location next week - but I shall report back.
• It's the Fiasco show at the Royal Armouries in Leeds this Sunday. We shall be putting on a game with James' Peninsular figures and our 'make it up as you go along' rules. If you're there please stop by and speak to Peter or James about what's going on and maybe exchange a polite, but silent, nod with me.

* "I can say with sincerity that I like cats... A cat is an animal which has more human feelings than almost any other." - Emily Brontë

Tepid

There hasn't been very much gaming recently, and certainly no wargaming since Ravenna at Fiasco, the result of which escapes me for a moment. Someone has been concerned enough about this state of affairs to ask me when I intend to spend this money supposedly burning a hole in my pocket, and on what. The answers, as you had probably already guessed, are not yet and don't know. Firstly, I haven't actually been paid yet and I stick closely to the accountants' maxim: Cash is Queen. Secondly, well, too much choice. Spending at Fiasco was some Hexon slopes from Kallistra and some trees from the tree man; basically the same as at every other show ever. The boat has been pushed out very slightly since though. I have settled on To the Strongest! as my rules of choice for both Early Roman Empire and for the various 15th century dabblings that I do. Figures for the former are individually based and I acquired movement trays quite a while ago. The latter are all on 40mm square bases and the size of the table, and consequently the squares, mandates three stand units. I have therefore bought some 120mm x 40mm sabot bases to make movement easier, plus a few 160mm wide for units with attached commanders. Painting (green) and varnishing (gloss) is under way.

Boardgaming has more or less stopped completely as I have found both the groups which I used to attend becoming cliquey and off-putting; it seems it is no longer enough to like playing games, one must like playing the games that are, by some mysterious collective decision, determined as being currently fashionable. A cynic - that would be me then - might suggest that having paid a lot of money for a game on Kickstarter is the main criterion for whether a game is so deemed. Which brings me on to about the only game that I have actually played recently. I was invited by a regular five strong gaming group to make up the sixth player in Quartermaster General: Cold War, which one of them at least had funded. I have raved on here often enough about the World War Two game, plus this new game covers a conflict through most of which I lived myself, so I was definitely up for it. The format will be familiar to those who have played/seen the other games in the series (although naturally there are sufficient minor rule differences to catch everyone out) and the first thing to say is that, as with the games for the two World Wars, the card decks do a fantastic job of capturing the essence of the political, military and indeed wider cultural events that we all remember or have read about according to age. In fact I would go so far as to say that it makes a brilliant three player game. Sadly, as mentioned before, we played with six players, which didn't work at all. The mechanism for dividing competing blocs into teams of two players each positively detracts from the gaming experience, not least by making the bloody thing last for ever. So, highly recommended for playing with three players, despite me never having done so.

The once a month Sunday afternoon group to which I used to go is changing venue this weekend and I was wondering whether to give it another try. The likelihood of me doing that increased significantly when I discovered that the new location has a pinball machine. I spent almost as much of my time as an undergraduate playing pinball as I did table football; in other words, a lot. I used to own a pinball machine: a proper, old-fashioned, heavy thing, stuffed full of electro-mechanical relays, with plenty of satisfying heft when you gave the flippers some welly. I bought it from a man I met in the pub. In my experience no story that starts with those words is ever likely to end well; this one certainly didn't.

Pot82pouri

Your bloggist loves a coincidence and so finds it noteworthy that after he included a link to the Palouse Wargaming Journal blog in his last post that blog has subsequently announced that it is having a competition and asks that links are provided to it. So here's one directly to the post about it. It's a most interesting and colourful blog, somewhat intimidating to those of us who are slow (and crap) painters.

I have however quickly knocked out the troops necessary for a trial of Square Bashing; Great War uniforms are good for that. I have had a solo run through the extensive pre-battle process seemingly common to all Peter Pig rules and set up the table with the result. I won't include a photo just yet because I don't like the way that the squares representing built up terrain look. The grid squares are much bigger than the single hexes used for C&C terrain and that is compounded by the fact that terrain always fills two adjacent areas. I have a couple of ideas, which naturally involve spending money; what doesn't? Coming back to the rules, they are fairly clearly written, but like the other PP rules I own (Bloody Barons) seem very prescriptive about things that don't appear to affect  gameplay one way or the other. I haven't noticed any obvious holes though; Bloody Barons memorably omitted any rules at all for cavalry vs cavalry melees.

Wargaming in Wharfedale will resume this coming week. We shall be back in the Peninsular as James has been painting. What he has written about Cazadores in his blog absolutely guarantee both a mid game rule change and that they won't stay as skirmish only troops in the long run; trust me, I've known him for a number of years.

Another Vapnartak

I have been to this year's Vapnartak. Dealing with negatives first, there weren't enough games and the ones that there were looked exactly like the ones that were there last year, and the year before, and the year before.... It's a wargaming show that you wouldn't bother going to for the wargames. More happily, it's not too far, it's a lovely venue, there are lots of traders and one generally bumps into people one knows. I picked up some pre-ordered Hexon slopes, bought the traditional five small trees from the tree man, and bought another pack of narrow roads from S&A Scenics. These are not intended as realistic terrain pieces, but rather for the deliberately stylised C&C games.

Speaking of which James came up with a further alternative for the current scenario, namely to make the hill an advantage for the defenders rather than a penalty to the attackers. The downside of this is that it means the French would be rolling six dice against infantry and could expect to roll on average two infantry symbols plus one sabre symbol; in other words an attacking Russian unit would either have to force French defenders to withdraw or face a high probability of destruction when they battled back. I shall continue thinking.

Tweetle Beetle Bettel Battle

 “I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny, but we can have lots of good fun that is funny.” - Dr Seuss

Whilst I have no immediate plans to play C&C Napoleonics - we will be back in the Holy Land this week - I have taken advantage of the traditional British Bank Holiday weather to set up another game. I had decided to create my own scenario both because there weren't any others on the website featuring the forces that I had available to fight the French (Russians and Prussians) and because I have always found the official C&C scenarios to be unbalanced. It is only logical therefore that the historical episode which I chose was part of the battle of Eckmühl on April 22nd 1809, specifically the action between the Bettel Berg and the village of Oberlaichling. This features Austrians - which I don't have - defending against a much larger French and Bavarian force. The Austrians will on this occasion be replaced by Prussians.

My record on creating scenarios is not good; I have a tendency to over elaborate somewhat. I am hopeful however that by restricting myself to simply translating someone else's scenario for a different ruleset I might have better luck. Thus I have based this entirely on an article in Miniature Wargames in October 2009, which in turn is reproduced from 'Battles for Empire - Napoleonic Wargames Scenarios 1807-1809' by James R. Arnold and Ralph R. Reinertsen, published by Napoleon Books.

The table layout is straightforward enough. The map is in the proportion 8x5 which translates closely enough into 20 hexes by 12, which is a convenient arrangement of Hexon tiles and is close enough to the C&C Epic playing surface (the latter is 20 x 11 hexes) to not require any rules revisions. It includes a double height hill and some woods defended by fieldworks. Neither appear in C&C, but common sense indicates what their effect would be if they did.

The forces indicated in the article are too big for a C&C game and need to be scaled down. After some thought I decided to take as a starting point the use of all the Bavarian infantry units that I own and make everything else proportional. Further adjustments are needed to reflect the fact that Prussian units are smaller than the Austrians were and, being a mix of front line, reserve and Landwehr, some of them aren't very good. I've also allowed for the fact that in C&C Prussian cavalry units are smaller than the French. I shall probably use plain vanilla combat factors for the Bavarians, with no national characteristics, thereby making them, as they should be, inferior to the French.

Defining victory conditions is one area that I have always found odd in C&C, particularly the fact that the target number of victory points is always the same for both sides; regular readers may remember this vexed me quite a lot during the Punic Wars campaign we played a few years ago. In this battle Davout's objective was to cut the Eckmühl to Ratisbonne road. The scenario as published mandates the defenders to counterattack against any unit which reaches the road. I think a better alternative is to offer temporary victory points to the French for any unit they can place across the road at the end of a turn. I'm not sure how many; perhaps a bonus for having units contiguous rather than separated.

May 29th, 1453

My plans for the couple of weeks or so - the school holidays in effect - are up in the air for a variety of reasons, so I thought I would set up a solo game in the annexe which I could dip in and out of as time allowed. Something compact and small scale would seem to be in order and therefore I have chosen to have a go at the Siege of Constantinople, which I have promised myself for many years that I wouldn't do. As a digression, does anyone else remember that one of Donald Featherstone's books contained photos of a chap who was refighting Stalingrad at 1:1. Even as a naive and credulous youth I regarded that as a bit of a stretch.

My scenario is loosely based on that in the Siege & Conquest supplement for Warhammer Historical. I've only used one row of walls for no better reason than I've only got enough walls to make one row. My Hexon terrain does however allow for a fairly decent looking 3D moat to be laid out.

The scenario deals with the final assault in the area around the Gate of Saint Romanus. Sadly there is no place for many of my siege related toys such as the Ram, the Tower, the Pick and of course, the Crow. However, I couldn't resist finding room for the Boiling Oil.

The Great Gun of Orban naturally features for the attackers.

I'm going to play it using To the Strongest! and you can see the grid laid out using the markers which I use for the purpose. Piquet would normally be my ruleset of choice for solo games, but it's such a faff to prepare the cards decks for the first time, and I just wanted to get on with it and take my mind off things. I do own a copy of Warhammer Ancient Battles, but have never been tempted by them.

The attack will take place in three waves: Bashi Bazouks, Christian allies and finally the Janissaries. Each will continue until they reach the command becomes demoralised (is that the term?) at which point they will be removed to be replaced by the next. I have some ideas regarding crossing/filling the moat, escalade, the role of the Emperor, and not forgetting Hasan the Giant of Ulabad; but the advantage of playing solo is that one can change the rules as one goes along. Oh, hang a trout, that's what we do anyway.

Pot63pouri

"Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away." - Ben Hecht

I have been pottering along here at the Casa Epictetus doing nothing very much. I am not retired and yet I don't work. I am in what Dorothy L. Sayers referred to as 'that time of life when a man can extract an Epicurean enjoyment even from his own passions - the halcyon period between the self-tormenting exuberance of youth and the fretful carpe diem of approaching senility'.

There has been a low level of wargame related activity. I have established that with a couple more trench sections - junctions specifically - I can play the second scenario from the Stout Hearts book. I have come to two conclusions: that I can't be arsed to build them myself and that the first game was successful enough to warrant the investment of a few quid more, and therefore I shall place an order for said trench sections to be collected at Vapnartak. On the painting front I have completed more casualty markers for To The Strongest and quite a few light infantry and Commander/Hero figures for the Ancient Britons that I don't actually need. I also did a couple of the druids from the Hat Gallic Command pack which inevitably led me to consider whether it was time to revisit the Pony Wars rip off rules and convert them to hexes. I don't currently have enough Hexon hills to put on a game, but I don't think they are going to find their way into this order.

On the music front I've watched quite a few local bands in pubs ranging from the blues of the ever reliable Dr Bob & the Bluesmakers, the excellent soul covers of the Solicitors, the poppy folk originals of the Ale Marys and the zydeco of Bayou Gumbo. The last of those seemed to rather misjudge their audience. The lead singer introduced one song with a joke that made perfect sense if you were familiar with 'À la recherche du temps perdu'. The Frenchness so eagerly embraced by Otley in the days of la Tour de France has obviously dissipated, and the Tuesday night crowd in la Jonction had clearly not got round to reading their copy of Proust's masterpiece quite yet.

Speaking of reading, I have been doing quite a bit. I have just started on Jonathan Sumption's history of the Hundred Year's War. It's a big book (and that's just the first volume) and so it's left at home rather than being taken about with me. That's probably for the best because of course he is one of the members of the Supreme Court hearing the appeal about triggering Article 50, and presumably when the judgement goes against the government even the sight of his name on a book cover will be sufficient  to provoke anger in the streets. When I do venture out I rely on my kindle. Recently I have read Priestley's 'Bright Day' (which, given my love of coincidence, I was pleased to see includes a trip to a thinly disguised Malham) and McBain's 'King's Ransom'. The latter has found a place on the - very short - list that I keep of books where part of the plot turns on a cost accountancy issue. I accept that this is perhaps a niche interest, but it appeals to me. Should you wish to read them, the others in this limited category are 'The Rise of Silas Lapham' by William Dean Howells and 'Angel Pavement' by, coincidentally again, J.B. Priestley. I omit Eli Goldratt's 'The Goal' and Roger Jones' 'The Carpetmakers' for reasons which I'm sure will require no further explanation.

And finally I was sorry to hear of the death of former cabinet minister Jim Prior. As I think I have mentioned before he was the only Tory MP or former MP that I have ever met. I had dinner with him twenty years ago in Abu Dhabi while we were both selling weapons of mass destruction to Johnny Foreigner. He was very, very drunk. We discussed a number of relatively trivial things including the recent giant killing exploits of Brentford (my team) over Norwich (his team) in the 3rd round of the FA Cup, but I can remember that we also touched on one of the big political issues of the day -  the proposed third runway at Heathrow; plus ça change.

Handing on the baton

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end." - Seneca

Time for a quick wargaming round-up. Firstly, and rather unexpectedly, someone has asked me for the rules of my Romans in Britain rip off of Pony Wars. I have to admit that I never updated them after our last game although copious notes were made at the time. This was partly due to the arrival of the Hexon terrain which made me think that all the movement rules etc needed switching to hex based, partly because having played Lion Rampant I thought I might steal the melee rules from those, and partly because I am bone idle. Anyway I have sent them off as they stand and I hope they are useful. We enjoyed the couple of games that we had despite them being typical of any rules that I write by being rather over complex. Notwithstanding having bought some more slopes at Derby I would need quite a few more before having another go.

Speaking of Hexon terrain, I have ordered some more, but bits of trench rather than hills. I have cleared the annexe and set up the Through the Mud and the Blood scenario I'm planning to run in due course in order to see what elements I was short of. I had thought about making some, but the energy levels haven't returned after my illness so I bought them instead. I had to revolve the alignment of the terrain by 90 degrees from the standard C&C layout in order to get it to work. My order including the missing rifle grenadier has arrived and painting is underway. (As an aside, this morning the big bouncy woman managed in essentially the same breath to ask to see what I was painting, assert that I wouldn't show it to her in case she called it crap, and then deny - erroneously - that she ever said such a thing about the chariots in the first place; still, it was good to see her again) The other order, the one with the casualty figures for the shock markers, is delayed due to a broken arm.

The latest order - the Hexon one; please keep up - is to be picked up at Fiasco on Sunday where I am helping James run a Seven Years War game. It won't be Lobositz because we are using my car and it isn't that big. It also isn't that reliable so I hope we make it. Assuming we do then please feel free to come and say hello to James and, if you must, me.

I will speak with the King or I will die

"In war there is no prize for runner-up" - Seneca

Or is there? I have been to the Derby Worlds wargame show to help James with his display game and he followed up last year's 'Best Display Game' with winning joint 'Best Display Game' this year. The concept of two games receiving exactly the same number of votes in a secret ballot of the hundreds of punters attending the show seems somewhat unlikely, so I suspect a stitch up somewhere along the line. Quite who got shafted and why must remain a mystery, but I doubt it was us; the co-winners were monumentally pissed (1) all day so perhaps there was a moral dimension to whatever happened.

My usual role at these affairs is to carry things from the car to the table and then back again, but my illness made this impossible so I switched to ensuring that history was reversed and the Prussians lost the Battle of Lobositz. The scenario opens with a futile cavalry charge, but somehow the attack actually did rather well, dislodging two of the infantry units in the sunken road. Sadly I got carried away with it all, pressed the attack too much and then the wheels came off. Frederick did a runner - I still have no idea how he came to be Frederick the Great - and things slowly disintegrated. I must spare a mention for the Prussian Garde du Corps. Normally guard units on the tabletop perform appallingly, it's one of the most well known laws of wargaming, but on this occasion they swept all before them and at the end remained the only Prussian unit not to have suffered a fall in morale.

I also had a quick go at the participation game of the Battle of Northampton put on by the author of the Wargaming for Grown-Ups blog, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was quick, based on what happened historically, but also allowing for the 'military possibilities' beloved of Messrs Featherstone and Roach. For the record I won a major victory as the Yorkists, capturing and executing all of the leaders on the Lancastrian side, but sadly failing to seize Henry VI.

There was a small amount of shopping. I bought some Hexon slopes. I really struggle with the three dimensional thinking required when laying it all out, but I believe (hope!) that I have bought the bits necessary to put out some straight edge raised ground. I also bought some trees from the, er, tree man and a couple of German machine guns - one being fired, one being transported - from Early War Miniatures. Hopefully this will give a bit of impetus to the still sadly languishing Great War project.

So, a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. It left me tired, but I'm glad that I went. It's a good venue - the breakfast is astonishing value - and the organisers are helpful and efficient. I look forward to returning.

(1) for the benefit of Americans and others who don't have English as their first language that is pissed as in inebriated.

Dear, oh dear

So the Battle of Sobotka ended as badly as expected. There was some minor Austrian success in that the Prussian right flank was entirely destroyed, but that didn't come close to making up for the fact that so was the Austrian centre. James claims to have pretty much finished a write up of the while battle and he certainly took lots of photographs so I will simply refer you to his blog.

I made a number of tactical mistakes and Peter undoubtedly got the best of the luck with dominoes, dice and cards. However, I don't propose to dwell on those; instead some quick opinions on the rules as they stand.

• Sadly the new withdrawal rules didn't really work. On the plus side, I liked the free move when passing the test to withdraw and the extra move on Officer Check cards thereafter; it gives a real prospect of actually getting away. On the down side, it's still very dull to play out that part of the battle. 
• Not that long ago James changed the rules so that infantry can only fire straight ahead. Notwithstanding the historical rights and wrongs of this - about which I know nothing - in terms of playability the result is frankly a real dog's breakfast, with inconsistencies popping up all over the place. It turns the game into the sort of 'wangle the angle' affair often previously derided in the legendary wargames room and, given the Prussian infantry's huge advantage in manoeuverability, leaves things rather unbalanced.
• I used to find it a source of great amusement that the definition of a flank was heatedly debated each and every week; now it's just embarrassing. To me the beaten zone and flank rules need to be defined together along the lines of:
• The determining factor for whether a unit gains flank advantage is the position of the centre of that unit's front relative to the front edge of the target unit.
• If a unit is engaged in ranged fire, then if its centre is behind the target unit's front and the target otherwise meets the normal criteria for being fired at then it counts as flank fire.
• If a unit moves into contact with another, then if the centre of that unit's front started movement behind the contacted unit's front edge and if no part of the contacting unit is in the arc of fire at the point of contact then the contacted unit is flanked.
• For the avoidance of doubt no unit can obtain a flank advantage over a unit which could (assuming it were loaded) opportunity fire at it.

In other wargaming news, I have spent some money, which may possibly signal a return to activity. I bought a batch of buildings from a charity shop, which I think means that I now have more than enough. These are hollow cast rather than the solid and more detailed Lilliput Lane stuff, but they will suffice. I also picked up another Hexon trench piece on ebay.

Charles of Lorraine comes good

There are many reasons why I would have been a terrible general, most prominently my complete unsuitability - both physical and psychological - for being a soldier in the first place. The specific failing that translates most directly to wargaming is my problem with visualising things; my brain simply doesn't work in a way to allow me to readily see things that aren't currently in front of me. This manifests itself in a variety of ways; for example you should see me struggle to assemble slopes and hills out my Hexon terrain. Over the last two weeks, in the Battle of Aussig, it caused me to fail to recognise that my artillery (that's my remaining artillery, having lost one gun immediately we started) was already ideally sited, and thus to wander it about the battlefield to no effect. In the end James - the not entirely neutral umpire - pointed out where I was going wrong, the guns came into action and the game was over shortly thereafter. For the record this in no way implies that I have reconsidered my opinion about the overall quality of James' advice and I shall forthwith revert to my normal practice of ignoring him completely.

I was actually going to win anyway. It had been a good game, really showing off the strengths of the Piquet system. At the beginning of the evening the Austrians looked like the only possible winners, and then a combination  of initiative and luck of the cards swung things back to the Prussians before, just when they were close to an upset, things reverted and the Austrians finally triumphed. My initial set up wasn't so good and my tactics may have been dodgy, but I did get one thing right. Knowing that I had a huge superiority in morale chips, I challenged pretty much every time I caused a stand loss and chewed up enough of the Prussians morale to prevent them from rallying back UI when it really mattered.

This was the first encounter of the campaign and I at least am still getting used to the impact of the campaign rules on the tabletop game. Some aspects were clear, for example there were no cavalry melees as both sides kept an eye on the post battle pursuit phase. Others came more into focus as the endgame approached. The balance between firing early (and therefore inflicting stand losses which will influence the campaign) and not (being loaded and able to opportunity fire is important in Piquet) is nuanced, and one of those judgement calls that it will be very easy to get wrong. I thought that the final stage - the restriction on withdrawing until reaching zero morale and then the option to do so thereafter - worked OK, although I think it perhaps needs more constraint on when it can be triggered.

So, a rare victory for Charles and we move on to turn three.

An intense period of not wargaming

Sometimes, as we all know, one's mojo doesn't work, even in someone as mojolicious as Epictetus. And so it has been with painting and modelling - there has been none. I can feel the start of faint stirrings and so perhaps it won't be long before I begin again, especially if 2016 continues to be another year with no summer.

There has however been a certain amount of pottering about in the annexe. Since buying the hex terrain we have played C&C Napoleonics games on a 'proper' size board which either looked a bit lost in the middle of the wargaming table or didn't fit comfortably on the dining table. What I really want to do is to use the full space available, which implies four times the area for which the rules are designed. After a certain amount of humming and hawing I have come to the obvious conclusion that in order to know what rule changes might be necessary to cope with this increase is to play a few games with the rules as is and then see what doesn't work. So I have been playing around with converting C&C scenarios to the larger space, immediately running into a couple of issues. I chose to double the force size thereby allowing more manouevre room and tacitly acknowledging the fact that I don't actually have enough figures to increase them any more. Then it became apparent that I didn't have enough of the bases that I use for marking unit type and strength, nor of the cavalry size sabot bases. An order has been immediately dispatched to Warbases. I suspect that on the arrival of the order it will be painting and varnishing those pieces of mdf that is the trigger for moving forwards the nearly complete more complicated stuff that's been sitting there for a few weeks untouched and unloved. I also need some more trees, which I think will be the main purchase at Derby in a few months, and more artillery, about which I am going to do nothing.

Those of you that read James' blog may have noticed a campaign starting, being written about and then disappearing. This deserves its own post and one will follow shortly, laptop charger and nazis allowing.

Se encuentra en todas partes y en ninguna a la vez

It was one hundred years ago today that Pancho Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico. I shall commemorate the occasion by not wargaming the Mexican Revolution, something I have been successfully doing for a long time now.

There has however been some small progress in wargaming in general. Not in the Great War project itself, but more in a sort of deck clearing to allow space to crack on with the next step in it - a British bombing section I think. Items completed have been:

• French Napoleonic 3rd Lancers and an artillery caisson
• Three crap (‡) Celtic chariots
• Ninety markers to allow To the Strongest! to be played on the Hexon terrain
• And that's it

So not much then. What can I say? I'm a busy man.

Perhaps the markers would bear some further discussion. Following suggestions received, I spent some time lurking in garden centres and pet shops checking out possible options among the bags of gravel, but in the end I decided that if one wants something approximately the size, shape and weight of a penny coin then probably the easiest thing to do is to use a penny coin. Currently the annexe has a Lion Rampant scenario on the table, but once it's eventually played I think the next game to be set up will be TtS!. There are two choices. I always could use the crap (‡) chariots and the Hamian archers, both for the first time, in a Romans vs Celts game. Or alternatively, there's the Wars of the Roses. The attraction here is that old favourite, Tewkesbury. I've played it many times with bases perched unsteadily on top of hills strung together to represent the ridge. Now I have the wherewithal to make a proper ridge and it would only seem right to do so. And what of the new expansion to C&C Napoleonics? It will keep.

I have been advised by Waterstones that Osprey are now unable ever to fulfill my order of books on the Great War which were previously reported here as arriving with only the odd number pages printed on. Both books involved are naturally still shown as being in stock on Osprey's own website. My inclination is to blame the publishers rather than the retailer for the whole farrago, although Waterstones' offer of a refund of £0 following the cancellation of the order hasn't been received terribly well at Casa Epictetus.

And finally let me draw your attention to two other (proper) wargaming blogs. Over at Prometheus in Aspic, General Fwa has a very neat idea for rivers, which I like the look of. And at Wargaming Miscellany there are pictures of old rule sets that I had forgotten all about, but which take me right back to a different time and place.

(‡)  © The Wench

C&C Expansion 5

"In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement." - Ben Bernanke

Some of the new terrain in situ

Before I bought last lot of Hexon terrain I had worked out that four boxes would cover my table. I already had two and so bought three more to allow building of hills whilst also taking advantage of Kallistra's volume discount. Mysteriously, and despite the advanced mathematics involved in the estimate, I had plenty left over from four boxes and ran out of slopes before I had even opened the fifth box. In any event I had specifically bought the fifth box as flocked - rather than the cheaper unflocked suitable for lower levels of hills - because I decided that would give me the flexibility to have a standard size game of C&C on the dining room table while a larger game was set up in the annexe. And so, last night, that's what I did. Equally oddly the dining table, rather than being plenty big enough as it should have been, only just managed to accommodate the tiles with no room left around the outside for the usual accoutrements (1): cards, dice, victory markers, ginger beer etc. I could have sworn that I'd had something sizable on that table before.


My boardgaming friend Chris, who I have mentioned here before has expressed an interest in trying figure wargaming, came round and we had a very cramped, but enjoyable, game. We played the Wartenburg scenario with Bavarians standing in for Wurttemburgers, of whom I have none. This was my - and indeed his - first try of the latest expansion and I was impressed:

• I really liked the new Tactics cards which definitely added a bit of spice and gave options even with a poor normal hand. There was great satisfaction to be had by laying out the right combination to attack unexpectedly and with greater strength than one's opponent anticipates.
• The new roles for leaders also added something. Their use is more subtle than in C&C Ancients which is as it should be, although as I think I've pointed out before it doesn't in any way replicate real Napoleonic command structures. I think that the use of commanders will require several plays to understand the possibilities better.
• There are various other new rules (Garrisons, Grand Batteries, Ranged Fire against Lone Leaders), but none of them arose so I can't comment on them. 
• I must also just mention the first outing of the new wooden C&C dice also purchased recently via eBay - all the way from Canada - which have nothing to do with Expansion 5, but which were a huge improvement on the plastic version; highly recommended.

So another step in introducing Chris to the hobby and he is very keen to move on to something a bit more wargamey and a bit less boardgamey. Which reminds me, the other set of rules that he has played is To the Strongest! and the as-built dimensions of the new terrain will make it really easy to set it up for that game. All I need is 88 identical markers; suggestions welcome.

(1) Google's spellcheck wants that to be 'accouterments'; Americans have obviously moved on from mangling English spelling to starting on French.

Some griefs are med'cinable

Another day, another storm with a middle class name. However, yesterday saw a brief gap in the weather, allowing Peter to ride the range, herd 'em up and move 'em out. This meant that I fired up the Polo (which reached 90,000 miles last week) and gave James a lift to Vapnartak. It was all most enjoyable although, as at other shows, the number of display games seems to fall steadily year on year. It seemed busy enough with the usual quantity of six-packs and washboard stomachs to be seen. James claims to have bumped into the entire Ilkley wargaming community (individually of course, because as schism builds on schism - they really could give the Judean People's Front a run for their money - they might more accurately be referred to as the Ilkley solo wargaming community), but being a miserable git I saw no one and spoke to nobody.

One game that was being demonstrated was Lion Rampant. We had enjoyed our try out of the rules the other week, but couldn't understand why friendly units couldn't be closer than 3" to each other. There were two theories proposed: either a zone of control issue or simply to stop individually based units getting mixed up together (we of course were using stands). The game on show was a Crusades participation game (someone please correct me if I got the period wrong) and the first thing I noticed when looking at it was the units weren't three inches apart. Sure enough as soon as they activated there was much moaning from the various players that others were moving their troops. Given that the use of stands neatly eliminate that issue I think we shall quietly drop that rule.

The main purpose of my trip - apart from buying some khaki paint; mission accomplished - was to collect a large order of Hexon terrain from the Kallistra stand. I now have much of this laid out in the annexe and I am very pleased with it. On reflection I would have bought more slopes and in different proportions to those in the packs they sell. Building this terrain is a three dimensional puzzle and my brain, magnificent in so many other ways, struggles hopelessly to visualise how it goes together. Still, as I say, I am very pleased with how it all looks.

I also stopped off at the Early War Miniatures stand to check out their 20mm WWI stuff. I did try to do the same at the Tumbling Dice stand, but it was always very busy. I bought a token pack of a Lewis gun team on the move, but feel that I might well be adding some of their other stuff in due course. I also snapped up a set of the out of production Revell WWI Germans at a very reasonable price.

So, a very pleasant trip during which I spent a lot of money, but at least my car, unlike others I saw, didn't need a push to get out of the mud.

Kvintessensen

There has been wargaming. The scenario is over at the Olicanalad's Games blog and hopefully some sort of report with photos will appear there as well. Last night saw two turns played through, which couldn't have been more different. On the first Peter, as the Austrians, quickly moved his light troops forwards. It looked as if we were in for a repeat of the recent game where my march columns got caught on the roads before getting a chance to deploy into the buildings. The Austrian cavalry also swept threateningly towards the still limbered Prussian artillery. Then came turn two and everything changed. I got an embarrassing amount of initiative and far from scrambling to occupy the town I was able to march straight through and deploy on the other side. My guns unlimbered and the Austrian cavalry withdrew circumspectly.

On the down side, I did listen to James' advice regarding attacking, casting aside the hard earned lessons of many years experience in the process. I did it essentially because I always like trying out unusual rules and this one was so obscure that a cynic might imagine that he had made it up on the spot. Anyway, for better or worse I am now minus one unit of Hussars while a second is occupying a village and a third has crossed the stream only to find itself outnumbered. If I can continue my run of initiative then maybe I can move some support up across the stream and extricate the cavalry from the village; otherwise advancing Austrian infantry may make things difficult. The forces for both sides are now on table and next week should see some heavy action.

In other hobby news:

• James' new roads are excellent.
• James' new space junk looks exactly like two razor blades stuck back-to-back.
• I have ordered a shed load more Hexon terrain to pick up at Vapnartak.
• My search for a painting project is leaning very much in the direction of WW1 trench raids, even to the extent of having bought a couple of books to read. However, and as readers of wargames blogs know more than anyone, the menu is not the meal and the map is not the territory.

Hamians

I very much admire those blogs where regular progress reports are provided of what has been painted. No similar update is provided here simply because nothing much ever seems to get painted. However, I am happy to report that the dozen Hamian archers and the Celtic chariot have finally been based - the painting was largely finished some time ago - and their place has been taken in the cupboard by another dozen Hamian archers. The cupboard in question is the one in which the painting tray spends the vast majority of its life; it's actually beneath the boiler so I pretend to myself that it is in some way a sort of extended drying process.

The archers in question are a mish-mash of Roman bowmen from various manufacturers. Many of their colleagues have been converted to Ottoman forces to serve at the siege of Constantinople, but those remaining have been dragged from the plastic mountain to give some variety to To the Strongest! battles. They are Hamians mainly because that's what's pictured on Plate A of Osprey Men-at-Arms 93 'The Roman Army from Hadrian to Constantine' (not the picture above by the way which was lifted from here). Extremely rudimentary research on my part (although not Wikipedia on this occasion) indicates that one theory has them in Britain as hunters, whose main role was to provide meat and game to other troops. That suggest a possible use for them in the Romans in Britain rip-off of Pony Wars, for which I am keen to develop a hex based variant. And finally, on the subject of Hexon, I have bought some more.