Missive to His Supreme Highness, Emperor Herroll Golden Helm

To the attention of his worshipful eminence in state in his fastness at Pennol on the Lake. 

It is my great honor to write to you of the recent battle between the forces of Zorn and the Black Hand, fought only yesterday. Local informants had told me that the Black Hand might attempt an incursion to test the willingness of the orcs of Zorn to defend their borders. Given the event, I am inclined to lend credence to this assessment of their motives.  It is difficult otherwise to explain their decision to come down from the valleys of the Shards of Lor to engage Sirdar Draschgig's forces.

 

As Your Grace is aware, the lands in the region between your own kingdom, Zorn, and the Black Hand have been desolate for many generations.  As a consequence, I was able to locate the advancing forces of the latter without difficulty and establish their numbers as follows:

Of skeletal knights: 70

Of skeletons: 320

Of zombies: 180

Of ghouls: 60

All of these were lead by a necromancer whose name I have heard variously reported, but I believe he is best known as Flavin the Perplexed.

I still have not been able to identify their intention, save to drive into the rocky wastes of the Zorn kingdom, but their ruler thought the threat sufficient to dispatch his well-known warlord,Tûrn the Belligerent and the force recorded below to meet them:

Of  goblins: 480

Of goblin riders: 80

Of wargs without riders: 100

There could be no doubt as to the plans of either side, My Lord.  Flavin's men dashed forward as best they might, though I know you are well aware that zombies are not fleet of foot.  Thûrn, however, proved true to his nature and was only too willing to sacrifice the smaller goblins, even as his wargs and riders made a swift dash for the safety of the nearby hills.  The orc chieftain miss-apprised the situation, however, and found himself surrounded by a horde of slavering deathless.  He killed many of their number, notably a great many skeletons, but was lost under their forward press and is believed now in the hands, if you will forgive my unworthy witticism, of the Black Hand.

By My Life, Your Grace, I cannot say who it is that won this battle and lost, with many orcs making good their escape, but many left dead and wounded on the field.  What is certain, and what I most fear, is that neither the orcs nor we have seen the last of the wicked machinations of the Hand.

I will presently return to see Your Grace in person, but wanted to send this missive by courier as quickly as I might so that you might be aware of all it contains.  Until I have the great pleasure of your presence,

I remain,

Yours Most Unworthily,

Galen of Basimar, Outrider 

Post Script:  If I might suggest to Your Grace that you relay to your own practitioners of the arcane that this Flavin did not appear to be a master of his arts.  He seemed to possess no great power.

(For those wondering what in the blue heck this is about, it's my first contribution to the cool "Campaign Carnival" idea.  It's the first of what promises to be several battles that are intended to be resolved by multiple gamers using whichever rule sets they choose.  In our case, the battle was resolved using Battlesystem (2e), the TSR classic played in the world of Divine Right, the board game from the same company.  My video of the festivities is below.) 

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and (Usually) Love to Proxy

I was one of a number of folks asked on Twitter about whether or not I proxy units in my games and, if I do, if it occasionally bothers me.  My answer was far too complicated for the 180 characters allowed and I hate Twitter threads -- they seem to me to defeat the purpose of the form -- so I thought to write something in this space.

For the unfamiliar, to proxy in miniatures is to declare that a figure, let us say a 28mm fellow shaped into the proper uniform of the famed 57th and painted with equal precision, is for the purposes of a particular battle subbed in to represent a fellow from a different unit.  There can, of course, be degrees here.  When I was first starting in miniatures and lacked the money to purchase the Minifigs I so desperately wanted, I played Napoleonic battles with Green Army Men.  Yes, I think this should be capitalized.  My ever-indulgent father nailed two-by-fours to an 8' x 4' sheet of paneling, painted it green for me, and away I went, chalking roads and fields onto it in different colors and trying to wrap my head around how to stage Waterloo with Donald Featherstone's very first set of rules.  I determined that some of the GAM (those holding their rifles aloft, if I recall) were cavalry, some were infantry, and the mine-sweeper guy was an officer.  This dates to no later than 1982 and my love of the form has never really waned.  

In the decades since I have painted thousands of miniatures covering many scales and periods.  I learned how to interpret an Order of Battle, how to research uniforms (this usually involving buying something Osprey or other), and how to turn wee hunks of lead into proper toy soldiers.  I even briefly toyed with Price August and all that hand-crafted alchemy.  Time and eyesight are both far more rarefied commodities for me now, though, which is why Tabletop Simulator came as something of miracle.  Now, through the shared modelling work of others, my table top has no limits, my armies can be of any size I desire, and I can join with my friends in playing just about any rule set I want.

With this as prologue, then, why, and how much, do I proxy?:

I Now Play with What Tabletop Simulator Provides

Never is far too long a time, but I find it very unlikely I will ever return to painting soldiers.  As a result, I am left with the charity of others -- and they are most charitable.  There are hundreds of different soldiers from different eras available for free in the Workshop and most are of a high quality.  Just about all of them, as I have noted many times in the past, are far better painted than I ever did in the "real" world.  That said, the collection is not infinite.  There is a notable lack of Viet Nam figures, for example, which is a shame, but, even within well-supplied eras like WWII and Napoleonics, the deeper you go the more you lack.  Not everyone is so fortunate as to have his very own Giogio who can be entreated to fashion a purpose-built Joachim Murat.  So I proxy. 

I Am A Gamer, Not A Modeller,

Even when I was peering through a magnifying lens and trying to get pupils onto my 25mm figures, the painting bit was always a means to an end.  I painted when I started because you had to if you wanted to play those sorts of games.  I know many others do -- and bless them for it -- but the craft side of the hobby never had any appeal to me.  I was here to play games with toy soldiers.  Speaking of which...

I Like Far Too Many Periods...Even Within Periods.

Bless always those who can research, build for, and play a single period.  Or even a single period within a period like, say, the 1809 campaign (early rather than late) for Napoleonics.  Of course the Wee Corporal is my first and greatest love, but I like a lot of other periods as well and that requires a certain flexibility vis-a-vis accepting proxies.

Along this same line, I now love testing new, unfamiliar rule sets which, before Tabletop Simulator always threatened the dreaded extended period of re-basing one's army.  These days even "real world" tabletop generals have grown weary of that and have begun preferring rules that either do not require re-basing or, well, allowing one to proxy bases

1809 Hungarians are pretty cool, though...

 Some Games Lend Themselves to Proxies. 

Best example I can think of for this is Commands and Colors.  In the end, all the games in the system are tool boxes.  It is "Light Cavalry" not Hussars and "Light Infantry" not the infinite variations thereof.  It encourages a certain amount of proxy-ish behavior.

Spot the proxies.  I defy you.

 I Love Some Periods More Than Others.

The more I love a period, the more I will want to not proxy.  Why this is so is a matter best left to one of Dr. Freud's descendants.  I just know that it is with me.  Besides, some periods, notably colonials in my mind, feel more "toy soldier-y" and I am far more open to running proxies.  My Sudan battles are rife with them; as is my Isandlwana.

ZULUS!

I Love Big Battles.

It is almost an in-joke.  We do epic.  When one does epic, even, again, in the "real world", odds are he will have to proxy.  I am amazed, honestly, at how little I have to do in the Napoleonic space, but, occasionally, we must.

Leipzig in 15mm for "Blucher".  Spot the proxies.

And yet.

If the figures are there, or if I can wheedle one or two from a friend, I will always prefer to get my units as right as I can from that famous "three-foot standard".  When Giorgio created bicorne 1805 French, of course I had to swap out all the shako'd fellows.  I love learning about these eras and assuredly the aesthetic must always be a part of the calculus.  For me, though, it is ever a balance and I will never let anything peripheral get in the way of playing the game.  Now wherever did I put that bucket of GAM?

 

 

The Idiosyncrasies of Black Powder 2

 

As part of Project: Quatre Bras, we've been making our way through various rule sets covering this battle; largely miniatures.  Last night we played the first four turns of the Black Powder 2 Quatre Bras scenario, and though we struggled a bit over a couple edge cases, found the rules to be what they have always been, viz., relatively simple, straight-forward, free-form, and a fair amount of fun.  That said, I was once again struck by some of its idiosyncrasies and, when I mentioned this on-line, got asked what they might be.  With that in mind, my list.

1.  It is a bloated book.  I doubt there is a lovelier book of Napoleonic rules anywhere, but that has come with some nasty, complicating bloat.  Page after page of figures, anecdotes, inset quotations, &c., mean that needed rules wind up many pages apart.  Flipping through Black Powder 2 to find just that rule you are looking for can be frustrating.  As a side note, the fact that the Blunder table is not on the Q.R.S. is a remarkable omission.

2.  Do not ever tell me to use my common sense.  I will stipulate that a rule writer cannot imagine every odd scenario that can come up on a table crammed with miniatures, but I worry that the authors used that cheap blanket to cover up a number of sins.  Taking only the most recent example:  find me a rule to tell me whether or not units must have room sufficient to change formation, say from column into line or column into square.  I will warrant it makes the most sense to say that you must have sufficient room to make a formation change; very many rule sets so state.  However, when your rules say black letter that a unit with the "Must Form Square" ability must form square when charged by cavalry, what am I to think when my columns are attacked by horse, do not have sufficient room, and yet must form square?

3.  I have never liked its toolbox approach.  For Napoleonics, there is the original rule set and now, I believe, four supplements.  Each of the latter brought a tweak to the rules here and a special ability for a nation there.  If you have none of the supplements -- I have all of them -- there are quite a few abilities that will make no sense to you.  There is a cleanness to Black Powder 2 that I think risks getting bollixed up with all the supplemental lit.  Worse, though, is that all that lit requires a great deal of tracking to keep straight and a fair amount of conversation with those with whom one is playing just to make sure everyone is playing the same game.

4.  I am ambivalent about the crazy swinginess of the command system.  In yesterday's Quatre Bras battle, the French looked ready to steamroll the Allies when, suddenly, they could not get a command roll to save their lives -- despite having a number of divisional commanders present.  One brigade rolled no fewer than three blunders.  Some like that, and I take their point.  Others playing, though, thought it deprived them of agency.  Here, I think, is one of those points where one will decide whether they want to play Black Powder 2.  Can you bear it if the dice turn hard against you?  In fairness, similar concerns were shared regarding Bloody Big Battles.

 We will be back come next Saturday night, but these, and a few others, are those things that I think will ever keep Black Powder 2, from making it into my list of top ten rule sets.

Virtual Conventions -- Animadversions

My buddy Vance is given to accusing me of being that old guy that yells at clouds (cf. The Simpsons).  I'd probably agree on most days.  I truly have, though, been preaching the virtues of virtual gaming for many months.  Ever since I got over the modest learning curve of Tabletop Simulator, I've been addicted to playing all kinds of games, but particularly miniatures, against friends spread out all over the world.  And, yes, this has informed my dislike of solitaire gaming and, by indirection, my incomprehension of those who prefer VASSAL to TTS, but those stories are both for another time.

I do feel like the world has come home to me, if only because this terrible COVID-19 business has driven so many indoors.  GenCon, Origins, Historicon, Adepticon, Little Wars, and a host of others made the eminently prudent decision to shutter this year.  Some bid us see them next year.  Some tried to go virtual only to have the venture crash and burn for other reasons (Origins).  Two weekends ago, though, Historicon offered up Cyber Wars and, last weekend, the Armchair Dragoons offered up its Virtual Assembly.  I ran games in both -- spent right around 20 hours between the two conventions on-line -- and now offer these thoughts.

Here Are the Games We Played!

Likely my biggest regret is not having more time for Austerlitz.  It was just starting to get spicy and that was a really good group.

The best game?  Hard to call, but I'd give the nod to Epic Eggmuhl which was really, really close.

Technologically Speaking, We Are Not One World

It would be easy to blame technological misapprehensions on age, e.g., that advertisement where the one old lady tells the other one that "Facebook doesn't work that way", but it's more complex than that.  I think tabletop gamers of all descriptions have so long shunned virtual games that they can't function in a world that, for them, is profoundly other.  Of particular note is communication protocols.  I was amazed how many folks struggled with their sound setups.  Note, I'm not talking about folks needing to get acclimated to TTS; that was always going to be a necessity.  I"m talking about how to find a session on-line, how to manage a chatroom, how to prevent audio echo, how to manage push-to-talk, and the like.

Logistically, It's Mostly Plus's, But There Are Minus's

I have set up more than my share of games at conventions, from RPGs, to simple TTGs, to full-blown spectacle type stuff.  I liked being able to wander into my computer room, fire up the PC, slap on the headset, and play.  I liked even more being able to clean up by shutting TTS off.  And it's all cheaper in the bargain.  That said, player wrangling gave me a very bad case of the nerves.  Pre-planning is vital and opening up an early channel of communication saved my day.  The worst of it is that we've developed an awful habit of proliferating on-line names for ourselves.  I try to be either Jim or Cyrano wherever I am.  This is not a universal practice and some of you -- you know who you are -- are far too inventive for the sanity of kindly on-line game hosts.

The Audience Was There, But Not Massive

Let me be clear, I didn't expect over-much and was not disappointed.  My games had a pleasant mix of new-comers and familiar names.  The experience of a traditional convention -- buffets, bars, conversation, argument, high-fives, sleep deprivation, &c. -- is hard to replicate, though.  Events like these can have success, particularly if they are aided and abetted by dread diseases, but I see them as having no chance of really even denting live conventions.  Perhaps that was obvious to everybody long before, but it really sunk in to me as I watched the response to these and other similar events over recent weeks.

Historical Wargaming Is Doing Just Fine In Its Cul-de-sac

Not everyone in these games was my age or older.  In fact, while I didn't pass out a survey, I'd have to say I was more or less middle of the pack.  Players came from all over -- two from England -- and several both during and after expressed their pleasure in knowing something like what was on offer was available.  What's more, YouTube viewership was up and on-line comments have been uniformly positive, with the notable exception of the two spammers who proffered links to pornography.

Two folks who have watched previous videos have gone on to build their own TTS mods and offer them to others.  As Doug Miller has often said, there'll be more than enough gaming to see me off this planet and some left behind for others.

Seeing People Enjoy Each Other's Company Is Rewarding

From the comfort of their homes, folks who had never met one another spent hours learning systems and learning games and a whole bunch of them had never encountered either the games or TTS before.  Before too terribly long, they were moving troops about and even trash-talking one another a bit.  That's something to be encouraged.

Very glad I did it and I sincerely hope those who participated or watched enjoyed it.

See you all for Wednesday Night Warfare.

Mad About "Men Against Fire"

It's not every day that you try something you'd wanted to try for a long time and actually have it work.  Usually, whatever motivated you to want to do the thing in the first place fades into memory and your left with bits and pieces of hope and lost promise.

I bought my first copy of Dr. Paddy Griffith's Book of Sandhurst Wargames a long while ago at a Half Price Books.  The reason I did so is that I had heard so much about the "Men Against Fire" game he had created which was billed as a hybrid RPG wargame set in the South Pacific in World War II.  As was so often the case with this book, though, it was missing the inserts meaning the pieces and, most critically, the ruler and character character cards were missing.  It took years to finally lay hands on one that had both in them.  It was more years still until, last night, I finally got the game to a virtual tabletop.

I'm grateful to the crew from the Armchair Dragoons who were willing to give it a try.  I moved the setting to the ETO -- I've never been one much for the PTO -- but otherwise played the rules largely as given.

Animadversions:

*There's nothing "new" here.  It's a bit of RPG, a bit of tabletop miniature wargame, and a fair amount of Kriegsspiel, although, as I've often argued, there are no RPGs without the KS.  It also takes from a variety of places the idea of hidden objectives.  Interesting to see this latter bit, now quite common in mainstream boardgames, come up so early in a wargame.

*The premise is that the players are a squad of soldiers -- sergeant, corporal, and a bunch of privates -- sent out to do a very small mission.  Each player is given a card -- those cards I was initially missing -- identifying them by name and then indicating whether the player is a "fighter" or a "non-fighter".  This simple binary is at the heart of the game.  It derives from S.L.A. Marshall's premise in his seminal Men Against Fire that most combat is done by the minority of men.  Most fellows, whatever their reputation, either muddle along or engage in outright acts of cowardice in the interest of self-preservation.  This notion is further evolved by each player having separate, secret victory conditions.  Some win by killing the enemy.  Some win by never firing a shot. And some win just by surviving and giving aid to their comrades.

*The game is played entirely blindly from the players' perspective.  Their surroundings and all actions are described to them in simple terms -- again an RPG -- and they have a limited lexicon of responses.  Movement, combat, weapon systems, &c., are all greatly simplified to keep things moving.

*It's a tremendous amount of fun.  It played very quickly -- well less than an hour -- and everyone indicated they enjoyed it and would try it again.  The one call we've had is for a "full squad" mission involving 12 men.  That would be a bit mad.

The video of the event, where you get to see what the players could not, is below.

The Week That Was

Here again so terribly soon?

Much gaming was had which is entirely the point, so I judge it a success, especially over a relaxing holiday weekend.

Last Wednesday, on a bit of a whim, Velker and I had at Cannae for Field of Glory 2.  I knew we'd be playing it in the big game on Saturday night, but it remains one of my favorite battles of all time and don't miss many opportunities to play it if I can.

I tried a strategy to thwart Hannibal's flanking moves that involved pulling a solid group of Hastati out from my center to deal with his advancing horse, but wound up getting tent-staked by his Carthaginians in a game that turned into something of a rout.

The Armchair Dragoons' Blood Bowl tournament continues with a fair amount of, well, blood shed including this tournament's first death.  Interestingly, these are not well-watched videos and I'll likely not be streaming quite as many, perhaps limiting myself to a "game of the round".  Still, as I say, there's a death in this one:

Our friend in Newcastle, Bob, was feeling poorly so was unable to make it for part two of the re-fight of the Napoleon's Last Battles  campaign game.  Doug stood in ably as both Blucher and Wellington, but Ron's French are pushing.  The Emperor has left Grouchy to pursue the fleeing Prussians from Ligny -- the record there is not the best -- but Wellington has chosen to hold his line a good deal forward of Mt. St. Jean.

"Saturday Night Fights" was the best of what we do as no fewer than six fellows took a hard run at Cannae for Commands and Colours: Ancients.  It will be remembered (?) that the Carthaginians had a nice lead coming out of last week, but the Romans definitely got back into it with a strong win and now lead the overall banner total 21-20.  Or should that be XXI-XX?  Round III will be next week Saturday at Dertosa.

Current projects?  Yeesh.

1:  Re-doing Leipzig for Blucher.  Yes, that Leipzig.
2:  Getting the Blucher mini-campaigns using Scharnhorst started.
3:  Building ahead as there are a lot of Commands and Colours: Napoleonics scenarios coming up in later July.
4:  Running at least a couple games of Paddy Griffith's Men Against Fire.  This is an unusual admixture of tabletop miniatures, role-playing, and Kriegsspiel.  It will likely be an unmitigated disaster, but I must at least try.
5.  Keeping the 1809 Flight of the Eagle KS rolling.  We've made it to April 22, 1809!
6.  I have promised two games each to the Armchair Dragoons' virtual convention and the virtual Historicon scheduled the next week.

I am terribly grateful that TTS does not charge by the hour.

The Week That Was

One of the memes going about these days has the narrator saying he's learned just how anti-social he is because the pandemic hasn't changed his social calendar over-much.  I feel that way about gaming.  Since discovering Tabletop Simulator over a year ago, it's been far to easy to gather whenever my friends and I care to to play just about any game we want.  This week was no exception.

Wednesday was for Velker and I to have at the Vimiero scenario for Blucher.  Our play prompted a lot of questions about whether the British can ever have a corps structure and the reduced-rate activation it brings with it.  The fellow who designed the scenario posted that he hadn't quite thought it through when he designed it, but, in retrospect, would want the Allies to be able to activate as a corps.

The result of the game was a very narrow win for my French.  A fun, tiny scenario that could easily have gone either way.  Also, almost unsettling to have a scenario with only two momentum dice per side.

Saturday Noon was a make-up game for the Battle of Vitoria for Commands and Colours: Napoleonics Velker and I missed the previous weekend.

Saturday evening was a full-house (six player) game of Commands and Colours: Ancients featuring the first round of our five-round Second Punic War tournament -- the Battle of Lake Trasimenus.  It was a terrific battle with the Carthaginians down 2-9 going into the last few rounds only to pull out a remarkable 11-9 victory, most of the points coming in a single turn.

And we even managed to get the second round of "The Emperor's OTHER Hat" Blood Bowl tournament off the ground.  My humans -- the Verdant Bay Immortals -- managed a tie with an ably-lead team of Skaven.  The tie has left me, in the early going, at the top of our standings.

Best of the new week.

Do I Pretend I Don't Notice How Long It's Been...or Not...

I'll imagine it's like I never left.  Probably for the best.

When last I wrote here, the world hadn't been swept by this wretched disease and we had just come back from visiting the battlefields of the 1809 Bavarian campaign.  I had, however, been hosting "Saturday Night Fights" for the folks at the Armchair Dragoons and others.  Since then, the YouTube channel has climbed to nearly 450 subscribers and we regularly get busy crowds kibitzing our games.

Here are just a few recent ones:

This was the first of three epic games of Wagram using my now-preferred Blucher system:

It wound up a fairly decisive French win after a great 12-hour punch-up.

This is the first of our two-part Friedland game using the same system.  You'll notice that it uses my larger 30mm figures in big blocks.  Wagram proved just to big for the system to handle it.

And this was our run at the classic Memoir '44 scenario "Tigers in the Snow".  Rare as a hen's tooth and terribly expensive on the after-market, I think it's actually the lesser of the two scenarios in that pack, the other being "Market Garden" which we're convinced the Allies cannot win, but is a good time nonetheless.

More recently, I've continued to build scenarios for Commands and Colors: Napoleonics as my son and I try to play every published scenario on the anniversary date of the battle.  Last week was ridiculous from that perspective as the week started off with Heilsberg and went -- without missing a day -- through to Wavre, which is here:

Mid-June is certainly campaign season if nothing else.

Finally, these were, of course, the #WaterlooDays which are special to all Napoleonic gamers.  In honor, we finally got our good friend and fellow Dragoon Bob -- he of the mighty 'stache -- to play a game with the group.  We fired up and recorded the first several turns of likely my favorite boardgame, Napoleon's Last Battles.  Despite a freak Summer storm taking out our power and setting matters back an hour or so, it was a really good time and I was reminded how much these simpler games can capture truths about these battles.

Oh, and yes, we've started our second Armchair Dragoons Blood Bowl tournament.  I took second in the last one -- a six-team round-robin.  My Verdant Bay Immortals did not shame themselves in their first outing in the new tournament, earning a 2-1 win against a team of stunties.

A lot there, then, and much more to come.

Thanks for stopping by for the ride.

Words on the Danube Campaign

Lest anyone who drifts by these parts miss out, I finally wrapped up the first of what will likely prove to be four installments of a travelogue covering my recent trip to the battlefields of 1809.

https://www.armchairdragoons.com/feature/adventures-in-napoleonicisms-teugn-hausen-battlefield/

I May Have Been Triggered.

I started writing this as a blog post, but it just kept going, and going, and going...

https://www.armchairdragoons.com/feature/cyranos-pulpit-a-defense-of-my-formative-years-against-the-imprecations-of-professor-marco-arnaudo-et-al/

Saturday Night Fights for August 17, 2019 -- A De-brief of Sorts

Fresh back from Bavaria/Austria, I dove back into the Saturday Night Fights with the Armchair Dragoons.  Originally planning to wrap up our Teugn-Hausen "Black Powder 2" game, an audible was called and Doug and I returned to Aspern-Essling to see if we could not finish up our "Blucher" game which, I believe, is now in its 10th hour or so.  Neither of us would apologize for that over-much as a good bit of the early going was taking up with rules-learning.

That last bit has got me thinking about trying to learn a few sets of rules well, rather than piling on set after set and never mastering any.  One thing is certain is that our "Blucher" game moved much more quickly now that we have most -- note I say most -- of the rules down.

First, as usual, here is the whole video:

And a few observations:

*We screwed up corps activation in two ways.  First, you can only activate units from within the same CORPS.  Sounds fairly obvious, but I managed to mess that up.  I do not think it changed the game over-much, particularly as we usually had more than enough MO points to go around.  Second, a unit may only be the subject of a corps activation when it is within three inched of an activated unit.  We used six inches for reasons that evade me at the moment.

*The French are in real trouble.  With both Aspern and Essling in Austrian hands, and an 11-5 morale disadvantage, I will have to claim one of them back.  The problem is I have little margin as the loss of only five more units would result in total morale collapse.

*Related to the above, and I confess as much in the latter going of the video, it dawned on me far too late that the way Ross set up this scenario places the French firmly on the defensive.  This is, honestly, their battle to lose, particularly if the Austrians are at all timid.  I have successfully managed to give away this advantage.

*This is a long scenario -- 37 turns on Day Two -- and that, more than anything, is what, at least now, has the French on the ropes.  Live and learn, I do suppose.

Not entirely sure what next Saturday brings.  We may have another go at finishing "Teugn-Hausen".  Plus I have got to start putting together a few more "Blucher" scenarios, notably Eggmuhl.

Well, That Was Fun...

It is an incredible privilege and opportunity to take a two-week vacation, but, my goodness, it can take a good deal out of you.  As I try to sort out the whirlwind and prepare to write a fair amount about what I think I have learned, a couple images from the lovely HO-scale diorama of the Battle of Aspern-Essling housed in the granary that played such a big part in that battle.

It bills itself as the largest in central Europe and who I am I to judge?  And the keeper of it is an all together capital fellow who really seems to love his job, even if he practices it only from 1000-1200 Sundays.

More soon.

So How'd We Do? (Teugn-Hausen Revisited AAR)

It was a smaller house than it has been with only Doug (panzerde) and Vance (Barthheart) able to come 'round and have a new go at Teugn-Hausen using a slightly different configuration of troops and making a commitment to, you know, implement the rules correctly.

The video is here for those inclined:

For those with less time, shortened attention spans, or both:

The Good:

1.  The game really hauled freight.  This was certainly in part due to a better familiarity with the rules, but remembering that when a brigadier fails a command roll that he is done making command rolls made a significant difference as well.  As Doug pointed out, it also opens up interesting tactical choices for opponents when a brigadier fails at a particularly bad moment.

2.  The Austrian use of march column and a better understanding of the importance of that formation made the game much more competitive for the Austrians.  It was a bit painful to end the session at the end of three hours as the Austrian reinforcements were just about to come crashing over the Buchberg.

3.  While there were many troop maneuvers, wheels, formation changes, &c., in the end, it went fairly smoothly and looked very nice as a tableau.

4.  I am particularly proud that we seem to have implemented almost all of the rules we confronted correctly.  Almost.

The Bad:

1.  We were over-generous with the divisional commanders.  They must be within 12'' of the brigadier they intend to assist at the start of the turn and must ride with him or her during the turn or they cannot assist him or her.  A significant limitation, I think.

2.  Skirmishers and units in open order (more on this later) block LoS.  Who knew?  Certainly not I.

3.  In the middle-going, you will see Doug order an advance on the French left and receive a significant success on his command roll.  Technically -- and boy do I mean technically -- the rules would not have allowed him to charge because he did not say he was charging those fellows at the edge of the forest.  In the spirit of the game, however, I do not feel we sinned very much.

The Ugly (I am not being blamed for these):

1.  The rule about how many units can charge a single unit was changed between 1e and 2e.   In 1e, it is as we played it and as my friend Doug clearly would prefer it.  In 2e, however, it is as I initially described it, viz.: only one unit can charge to a face unless the target is large and the chargers are both small or tiny.  Cleaner, but Doug's point re: this limiting the French capacity to use columnar attack is well taken.

2.  The rules re: skirmishers in Black Powder 2 are a bit buggered at the moment in my judgment.  Straight 1e -- no supplements -- seems to read that all units may enter open order and skirmish meaning they get certain bonuses when targeting for fire and shooting; not the least of these is a +1 on the "to hit" roll.  As the supplements were released, some units were identified as "skirmish" meaning, I take it, that they receive the combat bonuses where others do not.  The problem with this designation, though, is what to make of the "Poor Skirmisher" designation given to Austrian troops in Clash of Eagles?  I presume it means they can enter open order, become harder to hit, and target from wherever they like, but do not receive the +1 to hit.

And then, in 2e, the "skirmisher" designation now appears regularly in army lists and the +1 for skirmishers firing as been taken away.  I have no particular objection, but this is consequential for those building points-based armies.

I do not quite know what to think, but my gut is:

1.  All infantry units may enter open order.
2.  Only units with the "skirmish" ability may take advantage of the special firing stuff.
3.  Only units with the "Mixed Order" may form Mixed Order -- this is explicit in the rules.
4.  The Austrian "Poor Skirmishers" special rule is now vestigial.

Despite all this, my love of Black Powder 2 has not diminished and I will be back at it.

See anything else we screwed up?  I would love to hear about it.  Honestly.

Oh, and here is a shot I had forgotten I took.  This was game state when we called it for the evening.

My Goodness, but I Have Come to Dislike (Some) House Rules

Sooner or later we all get to be "of an age" and wisdom, I think, demands that we take stock of visceral reactions to make sure they are not the product of some deep-seated prejudice, cherished ignorance, or wanting people to get the heck off your lawn.  After all, we are the subjects of our own, weird interior story and our biases are just too dangerous to be let loose without reflection.  Some of these wind up holding up reasonably well under scrutiny. Quinoa, for example, much like the Chicago Bears, can ruin a sunny day.  Others, well, that is the point of the present exercise.

There was a question posted recently to one of the Facebook pages covering Black Powder of which I am a member asking about the optional rule, found in Clash of Eagles, that makes the movement distance allowed an infantry unit in line shorter than that in column.  I knew about the rule, but, reading the query on-line, I was taken by how badly I responded to it.  It elicited a response something along the lines of "oh, for heaven sake, play the game".  At multiple levels, this is an irrational response, to wit:

*It is an optional rule and presented as such.

*I am at liberty to never use that rule.

*Upon analysis, the rule is a well-intentioned attempt to correct what the author perceived as a historical inaccuracy.

So, seriously, what the heck?

This led me to reflect on what I believe to be a fact:  Black Powder in both its editions is one of the most optional- and house-ruled games in the history of our hobby. A quick search under the terms "Black Powder House Rules" bears this out.  Part of this is certainly its popularity, viz., more players increases the likelihood of more house-rules.  The other bit, though, and I think this is the root of my grievance, is that people want Black Powder to be something that it is not.  Bear with me on this one.

I am not here talking about clarifying house rules relating to what a particular rule means.  Heaven knows I have posted a video asking for assistance in interpreting the sometimes opaque prose.  I am talking about rules intended to make Black Powder more [Insert Era Here].  In a measure, Warlord has contributed to this as it tried to give each nation it added in the supplements something "special".  This is Warhammerism at its worst, although, if it be confessed, my Napoleonic brethren love doing this themselves.  Surely, after all, the Marines of the Guard deserve some unique statistic?  I will here also only note in passing the mess I think they have made, though imprecise version control, of "Pas de Charge".  There have also been rules in each of the source books adding new formations, changing approaches to terrain, modifying the rules for forming square, &c.

This, in turn, has joined with the torrent of house rules from every corner of the globe to create a -- to overstate matters -- Gestalt in which there really does not seem to be any thing that is "officially" Black Powder 2. 

I find myself un-moored.  From the first time I began to understand the fun, friendly simple system at its heart, I really did embrace a game that was a welcome change from the pedantic nonsense that infests tabletop gaming.  When I asked Prof. Pollard which rules he had chosen to manage his recent Waterloo extravaganza, he told me Black Powder because it was the only system capable of managing a game of that size.  And its broad popularity made me think we had evolved a lingua franca for use in friendly games -- it confesses to being fairly useless for tournaments -- in a variety of settings; a game that Featherstone and others might have understood.  I thought that the reviewers at Little Wars (those narrow-cast) simply did not understand it for what it was and have defended it since from similar criticisms.

And yet...

I, you, all of us, are at liberty.  I will play with none of these rules -- all right, I do like the forest rules from Clash of Eagles -- and be quite happy doing so.  Those who play with 12 pages of house rules will, clearly, do likewise.  I trust we will all have fun.

Do you like house rules?  I would be particularly interested in hearing from those that do not.  Why do you not?  And do you react this badly to them?

The next game, by the way, will be live-streamed commencing at 1600-1700 (working on that) CDT tomorrow.

Damnation, "Black Powder 2", are You Being Serious Right Now?

That is how the young express frustration, is it not?

In any event, last night the lads from Armchair Dragoons got together for what we hoped would be the second part of our Battle of Teugn-Hausen using Black Powder 2.  We all like the rules and, despite a few goofs here and there, I thought I had been running things reasonably well.

Then, while looking up an entirely different matter, I happened upon a teensy paragraph near teh bottom of p. 29 to the effect that if a commander fails in an attempt to give an order, that commander may give no further orders that turn.  I understand that the rule is there.  I do not know what I was asking the authors and editors to do to prevent my missing it, but that is a rule of first consequence and, despite having logged several dozen hours now playing BP2, I just missed it.  Veterans who have not missed it are, of course, laughing at me (at worst) or nodding sagely (at best) when I say the proper implementation of that rule makes brigade orders a much bigger deal and makes initiative orders of much greater consequence.

I enrage myself sometimes.

Other notes:

*Commanders must issue orders (or attempt to) for the turn and then and only then may move (cf. p. 39 top left).  I am glad this rule is the way it is.  This was the rule I was looking for when I found the one that so flabbergasted me above.

 *We (I) have consistently missed the modifier (a negative) for a commander's strategy rating when an enemy unit is within 12'' of a unit the commander is trying to order.

*"Pas de Charge", had by many French troops, grants a +1 to French troops in column.  This is added to the +1 all units receive for being in attack column for a net +2!

*Cavalry cannot form attack column.  That's an infantry only thing!

*LoS is determined from the flag stand to the target.  We may have buggered this one up once or twice.

*While it is true that skirmishers sight from the model of their commander's choosing, if a proportion of the unit cannot see the target, the number of dice rolled is reduced by that proportion.   We definitely did this one incorrectly.

*We will have to keep a close watch on the diagram on p. 48.  While it is true that one can ignore skirmishers and fire at a more distant target, this is only the case if the more distant target is otherwise (pace the skirmishers) clear.

And this, which I take to be an editing omission, has me cross with the author:  The rules on retiring indicate (p. 80) that a "retire" move is "a normal move in every respect".  I wish it had clarified if this includes being affected by terrain.  Miniature games are not of one mind on that topic.  Worse, though, the rule does not include the little tidbit included in the table on the preceding page that if one move is insufficient to get a unit clear of friendly troops, it may make a second move and only then break.  Would have made matters a good deal better last night had this been notived.

If you make your way through the whole of last night's festivities, you will also hear a lot of discussion about the best way to handle movement through heavy trees.  Forests played a big part at Teugn-Hausen and I am not comfortable that the standard forest rules represent this well.  I think, therefore, that we will use those from Clash of Eagles entirely, viz.:

*Woods are "rough ground" meaning skirmishers move through them without penalty, formed infantry and cavalry pay 2:1, and artillery pays 3:1.

*Non-skirmish troops and troops not in march column may only receive one order per turn, no matter what the command roll.

*Brigade orders may only be issued to units in march column positioned with 3'' of each other.

*Shooting at a unit with 50% or more of its footprint in trees grants a -1 shooting modifier.

*Troops sheltering in the woods (50% or more of its footprint in) receive a +1 morale modifier.

*Non-skirmish troops fighting hand-to-hand in the woods receive a -1 to their to-hit rolls.

*For a unit to fire out of the woods, it must be within 1'' of the edge of the woods.

Again, this feels like a lot, but one only learns by playing.

...and the video itself:

So animated was I by the retiring question, I fashioned this video:

My Goodness. Twenty-one Thousand Visitors...

I do not quite know why that number leaps out at me, but it has been great to have you all by.

In honor of achieving a nice, round, large number, may I invite all and sundry to come by my YouTube channel and subscribe -- or perhaps sign up for alerts -- if only because tomorrow, at ca. 1900 CDT, the gang from the Armchair Dragoons will return to the fields of (dis)honor and have a second go at the Black Powder 2 scenario we started a couple weeks ago.

It promises to be a good deal of fun and, perhaps, informative, although no warranty is offered or implied.

A Very Well-Intentioned YouTube Page

And a Good Time Was Had By All...Except Some French Foot

Doug and I got back to our game of Aspern-Essling using Tabletop Simulator and Blucher.  I ahould like to think my rules penance did some good as I do not think we mussed up too much.  I, on the other hand, have utterly bollixed up my French.

The thing about Blucher that is not obvious when you first open the tin is that corps structure really does matter.  The good professor goes so far as to point out in his F.A.Q. that he does not like rules that require corps to maintain divisional integrity, that he considered many of them, but eventually rejected any as unnecessarily cumbersome.  As a result, divisions can park themselves fairly well wherever they like.  So far so good.  The problem becomes when one is trying to activate all of those dispersed divisions.  Suddenly you have to wait until corps moves are over, each move costs two MO points not one, and you have to check to see whether you have burned through your MO points after each brigade is moved.  This has turned the space between Aspern and Essling and the Danube into a disorganized French parking lot.  Among other things, the Guard is parked what seems like 100 miles away from the action.

Napoleon would be very cross with me.

Still, at the moment, we have a one morale point lead and we ended the last turn of the session with one of my cuirassiers riding forward and smashing an Austrian brigade.  That is something of which His Majesty would have approved.

And, of course, the video:

Time for Some "Blucher" Confessions

Considering it is the most viewed video we have posted from the Saturday Night Fights (by a distance), I am a bit put out with myself for not getting back to "Blucher" generally and the Aspern-Essling game with my friend Doug (panzerde) in particular.

Here is the video of the first part of the first day:

That many viewers is a very fine thing, but it did prompt a fair number of game play corrections.  Which, although they leave me a bit shame-faced given the relative simplicity of the rules, I still take to be a good thing.  So, in the present confessional spirit (and anticipating part three this weekend), I proffer the following list of rules we either messed up or seem obscure enough to warrant posting this way.  As was the case with "Black Powder 2", I would certainly welcome mentions of rules you forget, foul up, think are really important, &c.

In More-or-Less Turn Sequence Order

N.B.:  I know that Tabletop Simulator does not quite pivot the units correctly.  Yes, this messes the rules up a bit, but it cannot be helped and I do not think it makes that big a difference.

*Corps activations must involve two units.

*Garrisoning an urban area requires activation.

*Simple Move: Pivot first, then move in a straight line through non-rough terrain

*Difficult Move:  Pivot either first or last but move in a straight line otherwise

*Charges may pass through difficult terrain

*The center line of a charging unit must pass through some portion of the unit being charged for the charge to be valid.

*Roads only matter in reserve movement.  This is a weird one for me, but I get it.

*Artillery need only fire at the nearest eligible target if it is within 2BW.

*Firepower and Skirmish abilities do not apply against cavalry or artillery.

*Artillery may shoot into urban areas, although at a penalty.  Infantry may not.

*Probably the biggest:  Infantry that fights cavalry (attacking or defending) and is not broken, drives off the cavalry whether the infantry wins or loses.

*Retreat is conducted through the rear base edge but not necessarily straight backwards.  Cf. the importance of making the retreat route as short as is possible.

Well, that was more than I expected when I started.

Here's looking forward to Saturday night and a return to Lobau Island.

"Black Powder 2": What I Vow Not To Forget

I am now officially "in" on the following rulesets:

Black Powder 2

Blucher

Sharp Practice 2

The Men Who Would Be Kings

What a Tanker!

Given this, I feel an obligation to write down those rules that I keep forgetting or got horrifically wrong in playing each of them.  Thus this begins my Black Powder 2 list -- others will follow.

I would more than welcome comments about rules you bugger up regularly or think others do.  Also, if you watched our Teugn-Hausen game and saw us get something wrong, I really would like to know about it.

In No Particular Order:

*Units using initiative movement may either move their 12'' forward or back or try to roll for command.

*Limbered artillery gets one free move, even if its commander fails.  This does not apply to blunders.

*Divisional commanders can re-roll blunders.

*Enemy troops within 12'' of an ordered unit reduce command by one.

 *The -1 for shooting at skirmishers or troops that are "not clear" does not stack.  Only a single -1 is possible.

*Artillery shooting at any column (or square) gets a +1 to hit.  I call this the "no, the artillery in Black Powder 2 is not under-powered" rule..

*Hits from artillery at long range receive a -1 on subsequent morale rolls.  Hits at medium and close range are at -2.

*I believe the -1 modifier "To Hit" in close combat set out in Clash of Eagles for troops fighting in heavy woods would only apply if both units had 50% or more of their footprint in the woods.  I am certainly open to correction on this one.

Why I Do These Things.

It is not every day that you get one of those clarifying moments that reminds why you pursue a particular hobby or go about it a particular way.

Last night's Battle of Teugn-Hausen with the lads from the Armchair Dragoons was one of those nights.

First, for those with short attention spans, here is a video of the whole shooting match:

Yep, three hours and eighteen minutes of Black Powder 2 played using "Tabletop Simulator" and a Teugn-Hausen module of my own creation.  We made it through three turns of a projected eight, although we certainly were not at the game for every minute.  Why was it special?

1.  The people.  Watch the video and know these are the kinds of guys you would like to play games with.  Sure they are playing to win, each in their way, but it is never an over-serious matter.  The response to the French decision to run at those Austrian guns in the west should tell you that.  While yours fondly was not always the most capable (coherent?) umpire, it never once devolved into the kind of rule-lawyering nastiness that we have probably all seen out there.  It was the spirit in which Black Powder 2 was meant to be played and I was very pleased to be a part of it.

2.  Black Powder 2.  I have played an awful lot of Napoleonic systems in my time.  No, really, a lot.  Trust me on this.  BP2 is presently my favorite for what it is.  It plays with a good spirit, it is Napoleonic enough, and, as one of the player's discusses in the video, creates a tabletop that looks Napoleonic.  I have heard the criticisms loud and clear -- oh, yes -- but this is a really good system.

3.  The camaraderie of the tabletop.  Once upon a time, in a world I can barely recall, we up here in Milwaukee were favored to have one of the finest wargame stores to ever exist, Napoleon's.  Run by a man I came to call a friend, it sold miniatures for decades, beginning in an era when Minifigs came in blister packs.  When I was a teenager I fell in love with the 32' X 6' table the store had in the basement on which Napoleonic battles could be fought.  And all around the table there were friends who mocked one another, drank, celebrated their victories, and howled at their occasional bad fortune.  I grew up thinking this is what fun was.  I suspect it is why, almost 40 years later, I am still dragging my family to farm fields in Europe because they once had battles there.

These days, I have no time to paint soldiers and my eyesight would not let me paint them well if I did.  Moreover, I have always been far too ADHD to ever paint just one army or even set of armies.  Worst, though, is that Napoleon's was ground under the juggernaut that is the World Wide Web (that's still a thing, right?).  There has been nothing even close to replace it.

So howling around a digital tabletop last night was very special and a fine memory.  A few photographs:

That'll Do Pig.

Austrians At Left

As for the battle?  Well, the Erzherzog Karl Jaegers are the battle's only casualties so far as both sides have struggled to get their troops forward.  Still, as the third turn ended, the better part of half an Austrian division was finally shoved over the Buchberg to join the scrum.  Much more left to be said.