Accipiter nisus

 Poetry has been somewhat absent from the blog recently, so let's rectify that. The spark for this is a sparrowhawk who decided yesterday that my garden was the ideal place to eat his prey, a chaffinch I think. It's the circle of life.

It's a bit blurry, not to mention showing that the wargaming annexe could do with a coat of paint.

This is what Ted Hughes had to say about the visitor:

Slips from the eye-corner - overtaking
Your first thought.

Through your mulling gaze over haphazard earth
The sun’s cooled carbon wing
Whets the eyebeam.

Those eyes in their helmet
Still wired direct
To the nuclear core - they alone

Laser the lark-shaped hole
In the lark’s song.

We find the earth-tied spurs, among soft ashes.
And maybe we find him

Materialised by twilight and dew,
Still as a listener -

The warrior

Blue shoulder-cloak wrapped about him,
Leaning, hunched,
Among the oaks of the harp.

All Over By Christmas

 Big technical problems at the Casa Dojo Mojo House Epictetus, which have been affecting all sorts of things. There has been a very brief bit of wargaming though. We're still in the Great War and using Square Bashing, but now it's 1914.

These are 28mm figures from Mark's collection. I think they're Renegade, but don't quote me on that.

Cavalry as well. The infantry which look as if they are French, are in fact French; Mark didn't have enough British.

The game is going well, but its conclusion has been repeatedly delayed. I am, however, confident that it will all be over by...

Bash That Square

 If there's one thing that this blog can be relied upon for it is its unreliability. I said two weeks ago that we would be playing Square Bashing last week in the annexe, and we didn't. However, this week we did.

If there's a second thing that this blog can be relied upon for it is that I never take enough photos to tell the story of a game. In brief then, the Germans looked like they would see off the British attack, but their commander - who'd never played the rules before - decided that having beaten back the first assault then subsequently advancing from behind his defensive positions was a good idea. It wasn't. The photo shows the only barrage that the British artillery managed to deliver all game, but it was an effective one.

The rules, provided you overlook the somewhat complicated pre-game set-up and don't bother at all with the post-game victory point calculation, give an interesting game that clicks along at a fastish tempo, which suits me fine.

James Was Right

 Now there's a headline that you don't often see. He said there wasn't another night left in the game, and there wasn't. Even feeding in a new Union unit every turn couldn't fend off the Confederates for very long.

I do rather like Fire and Fury, but experience suggests that if the men in grey charge in column and keep charging then they will sweep all before them. The issue seems to be that Union brigades are all very brittle, whereas Confederate ones retain cohesion much longer. I've never read the rules for myself so I'm not really sure if that's a central feature of them, or just something specific to the scenarios which we have been playing.

There has been some slight forward movement in the set-up of the Square Bashing game, with attackers and defenders now deployed. However, whilst I had intended to fight this solo it has, in an unexpected development, been decided that it will be next Wednesday evening's game instead. This will allow James to 'spray his cloth'; not a euphemism.

Noisy, Fast, Massing In Hundreds

 “Surround yourself with bees even if they sting.” - Bhuwan Thapaliya

The wargaming annexe has been out of bounds for a while because of apian invaders. But their nemesis has arrived.

However, professional looking as this chap is, the effect of his actions seems only to have been to annoy the bees, and now the whole garden is out of bounds and I can't open the windows at the back of the house.

There has been some wargaming elsewhere though, with some Fire and Fury taking place in the legendary wargames room.

I rather like these rules, especially the mandatory manoeuvre roll for all brigades each turn. Good fun. 

Fuentes de Oñoro

 I previously wrote that I was having a month's break from wargaming. I don't seem to have added that I signed off by taking the role of General Ney in the first night of a refight of Fuentes de Oñoro. 

I obviously expected it to be all wrapped up by the time I returned to the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach, but there seemed to have been some slacking in my absence because the situation hadn't moved on much at all. In particular some stubborn British infantry in square, who had held up the French swinging left flank advance were, weeks later, still doing the same thing. However, I broke the square with my heavy cavalry and rode them down. This was historically a rare event, and to do so in Piquet, or at least the bastardised version which we play, requires a rather unlikely sequence of cards to be turned. I got so excited at it all falling into place that sadly I forgot to take a photo of the event. After that it was fairly inevitable that the British would eventually run out of morale, which they duly did.

I also got in the first game in months in my annexe, with a re-run of the C&C game of Dennewitz last played with my plumber. This time it was against one of regular boardgaming opponents, who acquitted himself well in this different form of gaming as long as you ignore all the suicidal cavalry charges he made. 

And to continue this startling run of hobby activity I'm off to Partizan on Sunday, provided of course that I survive the excitement of tomorrow's 214th Otley Show.

PotCXXVpouri

 After a short gap, wargaming returned to the legendary blah blah with a Seven Years War game. Unusually we didn't use James and Peter's period specific rules (whose name I forget but it has something to do with lemons) in favour of playing Field of Battle virtually as published - at least to start with. We hadn't played them for a rather long time, but gradually remembered what it was we didn't like and so changed it as we went along. James has written up the first evening here, at the end of which we gave the Russians a shed load more morale so we'd get another evening out of it. That ploy worked a treat and the second evening ebbed and flowed quite a bit more than the first, but the better quality of the Prussian commanders proved too much for the Russians in the end.

And speaking of wargaming, it may return to the annexe next week for the first time in months. Having just cracked the problem of how to delineate dead ground in front of bastions, the logical thing would have been to play a siege game. However, instead I have cleared all that and set-up some Napoleonic Command and Colours. The motive for this was a request from my plumber who, having seen games in progress on previous visits, asked on this occasion (new U-bend on the bathroom washbasin) if he could have a game himself sometime. It is, of course, always worth keeping in with a good plumber (*).

In other news, the pigeon (see here for to which pigeon I refer) has gone. We finally did what should have been done a long time ago; i.e. captured her and took her off to International Pigeon Rescue. I didn't participate in that last element myself, but my henchwoman who did reported back that the organisation was impressively resourced, with staff who were well meaning, knowledgeable and every bit as bonkers as you would expect.

* Or indeed any other tradesman.

Vauban's Wars Revisited

 I have set the siege up again to have a little play. It's been getting on for three years since it was last out on the table. I refer to 'the siege' because the initial layout is always going to be pretty much the same. These photos may therefore look familiar. 

One change that we decided was necessary was to start the game with some of the second parallel already built, and that's what you see above. I want to test whether that means that any adjustment needs to be made to the force sizes or to the opening values of food, powder, morale etc. I hope not, and that's the way I'm going to try it first. Having re-read the rules I'm not sure we gave sufficient weight to blind spots around the bastions during previous games, although as it was so long ago I may just have forgotten. One aspect of addressing that which requires some thought - and possibly the manufacture of  player aid or two - is that my bastions don't have as acute an angle as would have done in real life or as the rules assume. The main reason for that is simply to make the table footprint more manageable, although it also makes it easier to put the cannon and figures in them. As I say I need to have a think about how to match the rules to the terrain.

Speaking of terrain, the only real change since last time is that I have modelled and cast up some proper positions for guns and mortars to replace the rather bodged way in which I did it before. Hopefully you can get the idea from the photo above.

PotCXIXpouri

 “Don’t repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before.” 

-Lemony Snicket

The lack of posts here is not because I begrudge the time to write them, or indeed the sheer hard work necessary to maintain the high standards for which this blog is known. It's not even because I'm not doing stuff, it's more that I've not only done that stuff before, but increasingly I have also written about doing it before.

One area in which that doesn't particularly apply is boardgaming, where I have played a fair number of new-to-me games recently, and I shall return to that subject shortly. One of those games had a Wars of the Roses theme, which reminds me that the new version of Kingmaker was released last week. It looks good in the photos and some of the revisions seen intriguing - pre-packed factions for example. However, the estimated playing time is up to five hours, and that alone means that I shan't be bothering.

Anyway, back to stuff I've done before and have now done again. Firstly there was the Stephen Daldry production of 'An Inspector Calls', which was just as good as ever. Secondly there was Walter Trout, who was...etc. etc. Trout, who looks in remarkably good nick for a man in his seventies with a transplanted liver, played at the King's Hall in Ilkley and rather bemused the audience by referring to the great views as the band drove over the mountains to the town. The views are indeed great, but you would have thought that someone from a country where they really do have mountains would have spotted that Ilkley Moor is relatively low rise. 

Last but not least there's wargaming, where we trotted out that old favourite Möckern. Actually, it's not particularly a favourite of mine; the French always win. However, there aren't that many published scenarios for Epic C&C Napoleonics, and even fewer for which I have the figures. On top of that I already have the map and OOB printed and to hand so laziness won out. It still gave an enjoyable game though. I shall only include the one photo, but it does show the defining moment of the evening. For those not familiar with the Epic rules, two cards are played each turn; one from your hand and one from a shared tableau. Peter, playing the French, chose Cavalry Charge from the table and followed up with Bayonet Charge from his hand. If you're going to play, play aggressively. 

Fire and Fury

 It's election day, but counting won't take place until tomorrow afternoon, meaning it will be another 48 hours or so before I write something here along the lines that the voters of West Chevin ward don't know what they're doing. In the meantime let's have a third wargaming post in a row, possibly a record for the blog.

Mark brought round some of his ACW figures. He is inevitably in the middle of rebasing them - he is the king of rebasing - but he had completed enough for a small game. It had been probably getting on for twenty years since I had played the period and I had never played the rules used, so it was all a pleasant change. Mark opted for Brigade level Fire and Fury, and I found them easy enough to pick up. I can't vouch for how well they reflect the period, firstly because I don't know much about it and secondly because Peter and I, as Union commanders, decided that a suicidal charge across open ground was the best tactic to pursue. In fairness to us we also tried a flanking march around the woods on our left, but you can judge how successful that was by the fact that I didn't take any photos of the forces engaged in it.

I did take one of the highwater mark of our assault in the centre, but the boys in blue were driven back by the rebels' musketry and that's as close as we came to taking the objective. Despite everything, I enjoyed it. I have to caveat that by repeating that it was a small game and we started with all units having the same quality, weapons and size in order to keep things simple. But I'd be up for a larger, more complex game; once, of course, that Mark has rebased everything.

Großbeerencore

 It's election time, and campaigning seems to be taking up somewhat more of my time than I expected or signed up for. However, I did manage to squeeze in one quick game. I was playing a boardgame with someone who admitted to dabbling in Napoleonic wargaming, so I invited him round to the annexe for an introductory game of Command & Colors, which of course is a boardgame that I happen to play with figures. For reasons I can no longer remember I always use the Großbeeren scenario in these circumstances, and so that's what we played.

I can report that he enjoyed it, as people always appear to, in his case not least because it would seem to have been substantially quicker to play to a conclusion than the home-brew rules he is more familiar with. He won as the French, and a victory always eases one's path into a new game. He went for a very ambitious attacking strategy, pushing units forward piecemeal and absolutely refusing to go into square when threatened by the Prussian cavalry. He might have suffered for all that, but I consistently drew only left sector cards and, especially given that the objective villages are in the middle, I was therefore rather handicapped. Anyway, a good time was had by all.

The Prussians have hardly moved in the centre or on the right

I'm now going back to explaining to voters what they will miss if, or let's not delude ourselves when, they don't vote for me, but there is the rumour of some ACW action shortly. It must be decades since I have gamed that period.

Ferrybridge

 Wargaming has been both infrequent and irregular recently, for a variety of reasons (*). However, Peter came round yesterday and we had a run through of the Ferrybridge scenario from the first Test of Resolve scenario book. It is structured in three parts - as was the original battle of course - and I had been a bit sceptical about it all hanging together. Peter had persuaded me that, au contraire, that whatever happened we would be able to construct a sensible narrative. In the event we didn't have to because, apart from Clifford surviving to see Skipton Castle again (always assuming he gets through Towton alive of course), it unfolded in a very historical manner.

I only took one photo of each phase, so no matter the level of technical quality, they're all going to be included. The first shows the Yorkist attack across the bridge after the Lancastrians have seen off the first two companies of attackers and Warwick himself has been wounded and carried to the rear.  

Notwithstanding these losses, sheer weight of number told and the second phase saw Clifford arrive to try to retake the bridge. The chap with the flag is whichever knightly commander we hurriedly pulled from the box to act as first reserve; I'm afraid I can't remember who had that honour. The defenders had regained some strength, but their diminished resources meant that they were swept away without inflicting any losses at all on Clifford's men.

The only thing in focus in this photo would appear to be the bridge, so you'll have to take my word for it that it shows Fauconberg's flanking attack, after his having crossed the Aire somewhere upstream. Given the Lancastrians being at full strength and having a sizeable complement of archers, I think we both assumed that they would easily see off the threat. But, the rules rose to the occasion and Clifford's archers ran out of arrows before doing anything of note. Fauconberg sent his own archers forwards and after suffering steady casualties that Lancastrians decided to withdraw. At that point they got the luck of the cards and were across the table and off before the Yorkists moved forwards at all. The scenario therefore ended in a draw, although Edward IV was now free to march onwards to  catch up with Queen Margaret at Towton. However, for the time being at least they won't be meeting in the annexe. We have tired of the Wars of the Roses and will move, eventually, on to something else. 

Having played them now about half a dozen times, my overall view of Test of Resolve is very positive, and I would certainly recommend trying them out to anyone looking for some new Wars of the Roses rules. 

* Both known knowns and unknown unknowns.

Flourish. Enter King Edward...

 ... in triumph; with Gloucester, Clarence and the rest.

"Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course

And we are graced with wreaths of victory"

And so it proved in our refight of Barnet. Sadly for Hastings 'the rest' didn't include him as he had perished upon the roll of a natural one in melee. But Gloucester, obviously stung by my previous observation that he never seemed to make it through any of our games, played a blinder. I didn't take many photos and no good ones at all, but include this shot to illustrate Dickon in action.

This was the largest of the games we've played using Test of Resolve - indeed I'm pretty sure it was the biggest WotR game I've ever put on - and thus wasn't over quite as quickly as the others. It played out rather well I thought. The 'stand off distance' mechanism in ToR lends itself nicely to the scenario specific rules required to mimic the fog which was a big influence at Barnet historically. The clinching factor in our game was that Oxford's battle wasn't able to manoeuvre as quickly when it realised there was nothing in front of it as Gloucester's did in the same position.

I think we'll have one more WotR game before I set up a different period and no, it won't be Mortimer's Cross. No paint has yet touched kern, and I'm now off to Wales for a couple of days of birthday celebrations in the inevitable rain. One thing that does need sorting out is a better way of marking casualties and troop types. The existing system was designed for gridded games and just doesn't work properly in a non-gridded game. Also required is a method of distinguishing battles one from another given that most troops look the same. Neither of those will be done by next week.

Iechyd da.

Three Battle Scenario - at last

 Firstly, a public service announcement: avoid this Covid thingy if at all possible. I was getting better, and then I wasn't. It is, to an extent anyway, my own fault. I had important reasons to take a day trip to London, but it rather set me back, not helped by all the inevitable train delays and cancellations. But, I had recovered sufficiently by Wednesday last for there to be a game in the annexe.

I'm not sure what's happened to the colour in that photo. It's the three battle scenario from the Test of Resolve rulebook, with a small change. The scenario has one battle with a mounted contingent, but given that the first thing that would happen is that they would dismount, I pre-empted that and made them fight on foot from the start. Instead I gave each side a small unit of mounted household reinforcements, so that we still got to see how the mounted rules work.

As you will note if you look carefully at the picture above, one of the things we were able to test is what happens if mounted men-at-arms charge into the rear of a unit which is running away. Funnily enough, it didn't end well for the foot unit. (I'm afraid that's Richard of Gloucester meeting an early death in one of our games, and not for the first time; he's jinxed) If Somerset and his boys had stopped there we would perhaps have come to the conclusion that cavalry could be dominant on the battlefield. However, rather than retiring and regrouping they charged on and quickly demonstrated why that wasn't what happened during the Wars of the Roses.

It was, once again, all over rather quickly. These rules really don't mess about. I, on the other hand, do mess about and there has been no progress at all on painting all the kern I bought at such great expense.

Tewkesbury again again

 Not for the first time I can report that we have replayed the battle of Tewkesbury. The 'Test of Resolve' rules continue to please, perhaps even more now that we are playing them properly. The Yorkists won, mainly by dint of throwing large numbers of elevens and twelves, against which the Lancastrians had no answer.

There were several presentational changes starting with the movement trays which I had pre-ordered and picked-up at Vapnartak. I'd also painted up some more household troops, allowing for the nobles to lead their battles from the front rather than being embedded in units in order to bulk them out. I have to report that the plastic mountain is so depleted that if I wanted to refight Towton I would actually have to buy some more; who'd have thought that day would ever come.

Speaking of buying figures, there has been a request to do Mortimer's Cross, but unfortunately I have no kern. There's no point in buying any unless I get enough to also refight Stoke Field, which it turns out requires quite a lot of them. Still, what is money for if not to buy more toys? And it will still just about cost less than an evening at the opera, particularly after factoring in the programme, the ice cream and the private jet to San Francisco with Julia Roberts.

So, next week won't feature any Irish, but there will be some in due course.

PotCXVIIIpouri

 There's been no wargaming for a while, but we shall hopefully be be back in action in the annexe this week. The blog has also been a bit quiet, although I can report that the mystery viewer has stopped looking at the post which I mentioned before and started looking at this one instead; several times a day as with the first example. I flatter myself that the new target of his/her/its attentions is somewhat less boring that the other one, but even so...

In my absence I have been painting the cultural quarter of the town red; it's the time of the year for both opera and Fairport Convention. I also saw Hayley Mills performing on stage, an actor who was a star before I was born, and I am certainly not young. Add to that a very interesting lecture on Weights and Measures and you can understand my not finding the time to post anything here.

None of the above involved any of the following people, but I do like me some John Lee Hooker:

And Somerset Another Goodly Mast

Prince Edward: I know my duty; you are all undutiful:
                          Lascivious Edward, and thou perjured George,
                          And thou mis-shapen Dick, I tell ye all
                          I am your better, traitors as ye are:
                          And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.

King Edward IV: Take that, thou likeness of this railer here. [Stabs him]

Richard, Duke of Gloucester: Sprawl'st thou? take that, to end thy agony. [Stabs him]

George, Duke of Clarence). And there's for twitting me with perjury. [Stabs him]

Or at least that's how Shakespeare has it in Henry VI, Part III. It didn't end like that in our refight of Tewkesbury, although it came close.

Mark turned up this week and took the Yorkists, allowing me to umpire. That should have given me time to take more photos, but didn't, mainly because the more I read the rules the more convinced I became that we playing the melee rules incorrectly. The starting point was our seeming inability to work out which companies in one battle ought to be rolling off against which companies in the opposing battle. The 'Test of Resolve' rules are fairly clearly written, so that was a bit of a surprise to me. It turned out to be a knock-effect of something else which we weren't doing right. In our defence the way things work is pretty much the opposite of how things work in the rules we have most recently been playtesting in the Legendary Wargames Room, and intuitively we seem to have gone down that road again. 

Anyway, notwithstanding having played it wrongly all evening, a good time was had by all. The Lancastrians won quite comprehensively in the end. The Yorkist ambush failed to happen, and Gloucester perished early on, as he often seems to in refights of this engagement. Hastings' battle also dispersed leaving Edward IV all on his own. He could still win though, by defeating Wenlock's battle in melee and pushing through to kill Edward, Prince of Wales, which he came tantalisingly close to doing. He was only thwarted by rolling very low against Edward's bodyguards very high roll. That is always a possibility with D12s. Still, as I said before, it was most enjoyable, as I'm pretty sure it would have been had we played it properly.

First St Albans - ish

 We played the 'Test of Resolve' 1st St Albans scenario featuring all the wrong nobles (*) and the rules met with a fair degree of approval. We were able to get a completely unbiased opinion as there was neither winner nor loser. Henry VI unfortunately got caught in the crossfire and perished. In the words of the victory conditions: "If he dies the game ends immediately and inconclusively as a draw! The Wars of the Roses take a surprising turn".

My main concern prior to playing a full game was whether the special period specific rules together with the game's initiative system would result in things running on rails, leaving no interesting decisions to the players. I'm pleased to say that didn't happen, although 1st St Albans is not a particularly normal battle, so perhaps no firm conclusions can be drawn. A concern that did arise came through the use of D12s, which inevitably means that luck in combat and morale testing can swing quite a bit. Still, I think we shall have another go, with a battle in the open rather than in a town next time.

The scenario itself was fine. I previously observed that one of the roads along which the Yorkists attacked is actually quite steep, but in truth had they been penalised for that they would surely have never fought their way into the town. The one area I would probably change is the 'God Save the King Test' which had to be taken by the first Yorkist units into the square. This was a straight die roll, but I think I would give them the normal bonuses for quality, attached commander etc. If the first unit fails then perhaps I would give a down to the subsequent units to reflect this. In terms of the way I laid it out, I would next time specifically mark out the areas around the square notionally occupied by houses, as well as scattering a few buildings about for aesthetic effect. 

* There have been questions about how I come to have a WotR collection which doesn't include a Warwick figure; he was after all fairly prominent at the time. Well the good news is that I have found him. I definitely don't have either York or Salisbury though.

Ramparts Unclimbed

 A couple of months ago I posted photos of the forces laid out for the final assault in the siege game that has been clogging up the table in the annexe since the middle of last year. I have actually played it out, I just haven't written it up. The reason for that was that it became obvious fairly quickly that it was impossible for the attackers to succeed using the combination of the rules as written, the forces as chosen and the tactics which I was employing. 

A small part of the problem was that the defenders had won every one of the preliminary siege rounds, forcing the besiegers to attack before they had built all the siege equipment they otherwise might have and without the level of superiority of forces they would have wished for. Possibly also I had jinxed them a bit by writing in that last post: "I don't see how the attackers can lose". However the main problem is that assault by escalade is exceedingly difficult. Now, obviously it should be, but then again one wants a balanced game. I came away with a number of thoughts as to how to tweak things, for example I think more, but smaller, defending units might work better. The attackers also need to concentrate their efforts to gain local superiority. I had held off posting about it pending trying those out, but have decided to move on and do something else completely.

So, overall I thought the rules, which you will recall were published about a year ago in Miniature Wargames, were an interesting way to represent a medieval siege. They could also provide a platform to build on to include some of the aspects which Vauban's Wars introduced effectively e.g. food, spies, disease. The part that didn't work for me was the assault, but funnily enough that's the bit that isn't handled well by VW either. 

Stoptober

 Stoptober is all about giving up smoking, but I seem to have given up wargaming for the month instead. No particular reason, just the usual real life stuff getting in the way (*). Nothing particularly bad, although I had an injection in one of my legs at one point, which apart from being painful in itself left me rather immobile for a couple of days. Anyway, before the Rhetorical Pedant puts in an appearance let me acknowledge that I had a relapse mid-month, when I played out the game that had been sitting on the table in the annexe for quite a while. And that's where we pick it up again in November. Having lost a significant part of their food supply, and of course aware that help has been sent for, the besiegers have no option but to launch an assault.

One driver for playing this was to get some of my siege equipment on to the table, but due to the defenders feistiness the only one that has made it is the siege tower.

 

When I first read the 'Vauban's Wars' rules for 18th century sieges I had a think about whether they could be amended for the medieval period, before deciding that they probably couldn't. The little campaign from Miniature Wargames that I have been playing has been fine, but perhaps a little over-simplistic. I like the fact that there will definitely be a final assault, but would have welcomed a bit more to and fro between besieger and defender in the run up to it. For example, the besieger's bombard never got a look in. Maybe some of the relevant elements in VW - food, spies, disease all spring to mind - could be usefully incorporated. 

Just looking at the table I don't see how the attackers can lose, but I shall have to wait to see how the rules for ladders etc actually work in practice. To be continued - eventually.

* For those that know me well, on this occasion it wasn't actually 'the usual'.