Hex Shambattle (2)

 

First incursion by Bluvian Hussars met by strong
cavalry counter attack. Bluvian Lancers hurry up 
to reinforce the invasion.

Here is the second instalment of the battle for the purple River crossings and Bluvia once more invades Redina territory. The action begins when Bluvian hussars make a quick dash across the Middle Bridge. The reaction is quick, and the Bluvian horse are hard put to maintain any kind of bridgehead. The pictures' captions narrate the story...

Standoff at Blueburg-Vermillion river bridge. After a brief exchange of 
fire, the Bluvian rifle battalions were withdrawn, leaving the 
Gardner guns to cover the crossing.

Wild cavalry melee across the Middle Bridge. Already 
both sides have taken heavy casualties. 

Action at Blueford: the Turco Brigade attacking on a broad front 
across the fords and the river bridge.

Early attempt by 2nd Redina Battalion to cross the 
Vermillion City bridge thwarted with loss

Treachery! Fourth Chasseur Battalion have taken it 
into their heads to defect. But first they have to contact 
the enemy before turning against their comrades...

... Chance made the 4th Chasseurs the farthest 
distance from the front line. They will have a long 
march!

1st Turco Battalion attacks across the Blueford Bridge.
Despite earlier losses, the defenders repel the invaders.
Losing a SP (the '6'), the Chasseurs retreat all the way
back to Blueford (the two '4s'). The '5s' cancel each other out; the 
'2s' count for nothing against foot.

Returning to the action, 1st Chasseurs are this time successful,
and take the bridge. The defenders retire into Redville.

Meanwhile 2nd and 3rd Turco Battalions attempt in the face 
of heavy fire to storm across the fords.  They are supported by 
the Brigade's Gardner guns.

The cavalry fight continues. A hussar regiment has reached 
a Redina gun battery near the Scarletton Woods.

General view: in the distance, Bluvian engineers prepare to
build a pontoon bridge across the river, as the cavalry battle
 rages on the far side

At the south end of the line, all but the machine guns
are being withdrawn from Blueburg. The engineers are
constructing - under artillery fire - a pontoon bridge between 
Blueburg and the Middle bridge.

A comment on the engineers: 
The unit comprises an engineer stand plus a train - a bridging train for the Bluvians. Both elements are rated as 3SP (Strength Points). Although not quite so formalised in this game, I suggest that losses are accrued alternately (not both at once for each 'kill' hit) beginning with the train. A battalion reduced to 1SP, whose train has been brought to 0SP, might yet resupply by withdrawing to a 'hospital' - a recruitment and recovery unit.

As you can see from the above picture, having completed half the bridge crossing (1 turn) the engineers and their train have taken a SP loss each from machinegun fire. That is where the Line Brigade is headed, in order to avoid the costs of street fighting in Vermillion City.

The Bluvian cavalry in trouble at the Middle Bridge.
One of the Hussar units has vanished, and the Lancers
have been driven onto the bridge itself. The Chasseurs are
hurrying up in support

A comment on 'hospitals' and their function:
I have yet to come up with a satisfactory nomenclature for what are really logistic centres for recovery of ammunition, victualling, recruitment and medical services. Perhaps 'Logistics depot' or something similar. Depleted units go there to recover lost SPs. A number of issues raised themselves.

1. Should units reduced to 0 SPs be permitted to recover SPs? I was - and remain - in two minds about this.
  
2. What is the capacity of these units? I think depleted units should recover 1SP per turn, but how many units can be so served in one turn? During the battle the Redina mobile hospitals in particular became overwhelmed - which suggested that I had set too restrictive limits upon their capacity. During the game I allowed each of the hospitals/depots to replenish 1SP only, and that at the end of the turn. The queues on the Redina side were getting quite long... I'll come back to this.

3. How do depleted units make their way back to the 'logistic depots'? During this game, I found it simplest to remove a depleted unit at once all the way back to a depot (the nearest available). Upon recovery, it would still have to march, at standard movement rates, all the way back to the front.

4. Capacity: 
A good deal, I think, rests upon the size and scale of the game. This one was fairly sizeable for a 4'x4' table. Here's an idea that I have yet to test:
(a) Each turn each logistic depot rolls 1D3 (or half D6) which gives it a capacity for the turn to rebuild 1-3SPs on depleted units in or adjacent to the logistic depot's location. Perhaps the 'permanent' depot ought to have a slightly greater capacity - a D4 (1-4SP) or possibly a D6 (1-6SP). 
(b) If the capacity is available, a depleted unit might recover more than 1SP. However, if there is more than one unit awaiting recovery (from that logistic depot), the SPs must be distributed among them.
(c) A depot's capacity is not cumulative. The 'per turn' die roll merely indicates what is available for the moment.


5. Capture:
If attacked, a depot has 0 SPs. Nor does it fight on its own account, though a fighting unit may be placed in the same grid area to defend it. An undefended mobile depot attacked is at once removed. If the  permanent depot is attacked undefended, it is captured, and becomes available to the attacker in subsequent turns.

So far these are merely ideas, to be adopted or discarded as seems convenient. 

I think here is a convenient moment to pause, the battles for the river crossings still in doubt, and to resume the narrative in a separate posting.

To be continued...

The battle for the fords. What happened to 
2nd Turco Battalion...?

Hex Shambattle

 

The Bluvian II Division at Cerulean City.
The significance of the RED Strength point marker 
will be explained in due course...

It is high time, I am supposing, to relate what happened in the recent border clash between the armies of Redina and Bluvia. No one quite knows what caused the conflagration this time. Where there is friction, the least spark will ignite the flames of war, and so it was on this occasion. Perhaps Bluvia feared a reprisal for their decisive victory in the previous clash (see here). Certain it was that Redina had failed to make good upon ceding Redville to Bluvia administration. However it was, Bluvia once again set in motion their powerful army.

The Shambattle map. The names of half the towns
have been renamed.

In this action I made slight changes to the Order of battle I outlined in a previous posting (Shambattle Maps).  For both armies I reduced the infantry from 14 to 12 stands (each representing a battalion), but increased the artillery to 2 field and 1 medium battery. I also added an engineer battalion at 3 Strength points, plus a train of another 3SP. As it happens, one of those trains contributed materially to the action.

The infantry formed 3 Divisions of 4 Battalions, plus a machinegun company.  The 6 cavalry regiments formed a Division. Again, the likelihood of treachery in the ranks was determined by a series of die rolls, the identity of which was indicated by a 'wrong' coloured strength point marker (die). The time and nature of their perfidy would be determined during the course of the action.

The remainder of this first instalment of the narrative, I'll reserve it to the pictures' captions to lay out the situation...

Scarletton: the Redina capital city. The red brick edifice
is the hospital, recruiting centre and logistics collection 
point.

The plains before Scarletton. Redina machine guns and artillery cover
the Middle Bridge...

... whilst on the opposite bank of the Purple River, the Bluvian
 Cavalry await the order to march.
 

Redina 3rd Brigade garrison at Redville

Bluvian 1st (Turco) Brigade massed at Blueford

Overall view of the Theatre of War, looking west
from behind Cerulean City towards the distant hill upon which
 stands Scarletton.

View of the plains between Cerulean City and the river

It seemed to work... Thoughts on Portable Lutzen

My recent Battle of Lutzen (1632) project threw up several thinking points, mostly occasioned by the way my armies have been designed and based. Having switched from a design of my own to the DBR game system (huge mistake, but not due, apart from a want of 'finish', to any real problem with that system)  I found myself unable to make the reverse decision. Perhaps that was a bullet I ought to have bitten, after all.

What this has led to is having to create units with multiple stands. Now, that's OK, but I have a feeling that the Antoine Bourguilleau designed Portable Pike & Shot Wargame calls for single-based units - even unto Swedish brigades and Spanish tercios. A tercio comprising 9 figures of pikemen forming a square, with 3 musketeers/arquebusiers capping each of the four corners, with each figure occupying a 15mm (front) and 20mm (depth) base would fit easily within my square grid cells, and not too badly within my hex grid cells. The latter would overlap the cell boundaries only a trifling amount.

Well, not to be: too bad. Let's work with what we have. 

What I had in mind was that the infantry units would default to a 6-stand battalion, comprising a centre of 2 x 4-figure pike stands, and wings of 4 x 3-figure shot. Like these fellows on the right of the picture: 

On the right, four Swedish battalia, each of 20 figures.
The Imperialist foot facing them comprise 8 extra pikemen

This is roughly how a DBR game would look (this pic is dated May 2008 in my archives). Of course, the stands being 6cm wide, that gives us a unit with a frontage of 18cm - requiring two grid squares to accommodate. It was this, and thinking about tercios that gave rise to multi-grid-cell units. The tercios featured in my recent 30YW battles.

The concept seemed to work, although it did lead to a staggered 'line' drown up 4 tercios abreast at the outset of the Lutzen battle. Shaken out into a lozenge formation, the four tercios looked the part.

Before continuing with the topic of unit sizes, and their implications, I want first to outline where I intend to adapt the original concept to my own set up. I intend to try out several changes to the system

1.Artillery:

1.1 Artillery is divided into 'field' and 'battalion' guns
1.2 Field artillery can not move, except to change facing, unless there is a horse team available to move it. Once hitched (taking one move) the artillery may move two hexes per turn.
1.3 Battalion guns can be manhandled 1 hex per turn
1.4 Artillery present no obstacle to the movement of other units, apart from preventing their landing on the same grid area. A foot or horsed unit may simply 'pass through' friendly artillery. Enemy artillery overrun may simply be removed from play 
(I am very tempted to permit the 'capture' of artillery with the idea they they may be turned upon their former owners. Wouldn't that be fun?)
1.5 For the purposes of the game, I increased the range of my 'field' artillery to 6 grid areas - hexes or squares.  I'm very tempted to make it 8. At a 6-hex maximum, short range is 2 grid areas. 
1.6 The firing range of battalion guns is the same as for artillery in the Portable set: 1 grid area at short range; 3 at long. 
1.7 Rather than limiting shooting to along a single line of hexes or squares, I propose this:
When firing through a a square or hex side, the 'firing arc' is the grid area immediately in front, and one grid area either side of the centre line thereafter. 

Firing arcs;
Field battery: Red (short) and pink (long)
Battalion guns: Orange (short) and yellow (long) 

1.8 I am considering the option to shoot though a hex corner (not square corners if using a square grid). The reason for this has to do with the size and shape of my foot units. If so, the 'arc' of fire will be 1 hex either side of the center line - a firing arc 2-3 hexes wide.

2. Horse.

2.1 There is but one real adaptation I want to make, here, and that is to the 'Dutch' cavalry - harquebusiers - as defined under the PP&SW game system. These fellows tend not to go in for the up close and in your face stuff, but prefer to stand off and shoot. They also, it seems, favoured rather deep columns, which, shooting by introduction in a species of caracole, kept up a considerable rate of short-ranged fire whilst slowly moving forward (at least, that is how I figure it). 

This is quite in contrast to the 'Swedish' school of thought, which was to get tore in with the sword. The question is, how does one make it worthwhile to depict the deep columns of 'Dutch' harquebusiers? I propose that such a unit -

(a) adds 1 to its shooting dice if it has a third rank, 

or alternatively, 

(b) counts 1SP per rank, up to a maximum of 3. 

2.2 Light Horse.
The Imperialists often fielded Croats, Cossacks and Hussar light horse. I have added them to the mix: Move 4 hexes, 2SP each, counting as 'poor' or 'average'. 

3. Foot

3.1 Forlorn hope:
These for single stand units, rather like a skirmish line, with 1SP only. They may be classed as 'poor' or 'average'. Actually, these fellows were often brave men who volunteered for some reward or perhaps commutation of punishment. The chances of survival were pretty slender! However, brief experience, especially as defenders of a protected position, have shown them hard to shift, so they don't count as elite.

3.2. Battalia/ Brigades:
The three-stand battalia or 'brigades' I used for the Lutzen battle I reckon ought to be 3SP instead of 4. They each have the same firepower as the tercio, but eight of them still double the firepower of the 4 tercios. 

However, I also have in mind fielding 6-stand 'battalia'. Now, these of course, span 2 grid areas wide - reasonably convenient on a square grid battlefield; less so with a hex grid. On the latter, the unit would 'naturally' face the hex corners, as shown here:

With such a formation, one feels that it might engage two shooting targets in a given turn, or both wings concentrate upon the hex in front of the pike block. An enemy standing there would of course engage the battalion as a whole. A species of tercio might also be depicted with this orientation:

This whole idea seems to present rather a different game, with movement, fire and close combat through the hex corners, in effect, rather than the hex sides. If I were to test this idea, I'd be inclined to add 2 to the standard SP values for both: 6SP for the battalia; 8SP for the tercio.

4. Combat results.

For the size of the game, I seems more convenient - certainly speedier - that all hits result in a SP loss. Whether a unit taking that loss gets also pushed back one grid area might depend upon its quality (poor, average, elite). For the most part I applied the hit=SP loss during the Lutzen battle, and the thing went quite briskly considering the size of the game.

All these ideas will require play testing some time. Meanwhile, I am doing some prep work for the Battle of White Mountain (1620). My Swedish army will be co-opted to represent the Protestant  Bohemian Army.



To be continued...

Battle map for White Mountain