Retired Wargamers Reunited..

Last week was the second anniversary of my retirement/redundancy from work (which is not missed at all!),  and what better way than to sit down to a tabletop battle with old friends?  Having recently re-established contact with Tony and Reg, formerly (very formerly -1970s/1980s!) fellow members of Rainham Wargames Club,  it turned out that Reg lives only 40 mins drive from me, and Tony was visiting for a couple of days - so I was honoured to be invited to join them for a game. The first time in several decades that we three had rolled dice and moved figures together - and indeed, given that my gaming since starting this blog has been essentially solo.or remote (using Zoom)  this was probably my first 'face-to-face' game using figures in many years.  I must give a very big 'thank you' to them both for a warm welcome and excellent gaming! 

Union troops enter right - my zouaves in foreground

The main event was a game using Reg's  ACW 15mm collection (mostly Minifigs, I believe), played with Black Powder rules, with some tweaks from the ACW supplement. You can see the table above - I liked Reg's copious use of trees, scrub etc denoting  the rough terrain beyond the river, these were purely for visual effect and could be shifted to accomodate units moving through, but made the table look really good.  

The setup was that Tony and I would share the Union force, with Reg taking the Rebel side. He provided a briefing, the core of which was as follows: 

Time and Date: The date is 22 July 1862. The location is in the Shenandoah Valley near Winchester.
Forces: You are divisional generals in Major General Nathanial Banks V Corps. You each command a division, which together completes the corps.  A division consists of two brigades with supporting artillery.
Scenario: The corps has camped overnight south of Crampton’s gap on the Valley Turnpike. Orders were received during the night to move through the gap to relieve General Shield’s division which has sent word for help after being attacked by T. Jackson.
Sadly Banks died during the night from a heart attack. The corps needs to go to Shield’s rescue. The only way is through Crampton’s gap.
You have no knowledge of size or where Jackson’s forces are. He could be lying in wait or come on from either flank. If Early’s division is with him you will be outnumbered.

Notes on Troops
You both have a command value of 8, your Brigadiers are 7.
You each have a division of two brigades.
Each Brigade has 5 regiments plus artillery. The composition of each brigade is
different and you will draw for them.
You each have a spare brigade but it will cost you victory points to bring it on.
 

Victory against me [i.e. against Rebels]:
    Level 1 getting supply train across the creek.
    Level 2 getting supply train across and into gap.
    Level 3 getting supply train off of board.
 

Victory against each other :.
Points for routing my forces - per unit.
Points for Crossing stream - getting on hills and exiting board. Per unit.
Minus points for using spare Brigade. Cost reduces as time goes on.
Winner gets to replace Banks as corps commander.
 

All of which gave some nice twists to the game : Tony and I started with no idea of what opposition faced us, and had a 'co-operative but competitive' relationship in  aiming to beat Johnny Reb ( or Johnny Reg? )  but also jockeying to become the Corps commander!  See the picture above for the table layout - Union entering from the left (South), the river is crossable  by infantry at all points but guns must use one of three fords ( two at the roads ),  but the area North of the river is all deemed rough terrain, and Confederate troops may be concealed there. To the right hand side (North) of the table the land rises to ridges, with the central road going through at Crampton's Gap. 

The four Union brigades were shared (two each)  randomly between us, each brigade having its own distinct character - one containing mostly 'Green' but enthusiastic regiments stiffened by one veteran unit,  another made up of colourful Zouave regiments with high  morale plus a unit of sharpshooters, the other two comprising  more straightfoward 'regular' regiments.  I drew the Zouaves and one of the regular brigades, Tony took the 'Green' brigade and the other regular one.  Not being an ACW expert and having never played Black Powder, I thought of myself as an inexperienced Division commander, in his first campaign. Maybe I was acting the son of a US Senator, with no military experience,  who had joined up to do his bit for the Union and been gifted a Division  to  command after a bit of Senatorial/Parental string-pulling?  I was happy to watch and learn from my more experienced colleague, and I figured he was probably going to get to be the Corps commander! 

I knew nothing about Black Powder and was pleasantly surprised - the simplicity of the rules made them easy to pick up, and  allowed the game to move along at a good pace, with quite large forces - the Union commanders had 20 regiments between them, but this didn't seem to be a particular  burden. The 'command dice roll' mechanic is  simple  (each Brigade Commander rolls 2 dice for each order they issue, requiring to score less than or equal to their command rating for the order to be successful )   and seemed to work pretty well, ensuring that not all orders got through or got obeyed, but also that units could obey the orders with different levels of enthusiam - taking a normal move, or a double or even triple! You need to be careful how you describe the orders you are suggesting - 'advance as far as possible' can spring a surprise if you roll up a triple move, as I was to find out.  

The 'dice gods' tended to take a hand with interesting results - my Zouave brigade was more keen than I expected in marching up the right-hand turnpike ( I did specify 'go as far as possible' ) with the result  that the leading regiment was caught in column by a volley from Confederates concealed behind cover on the ridge - causing some damage and disorder, and hurried re-deployment into firing line!  The brigade shook out into lines and began a slow advance towards the enemy lining the ridge, exchanging fire and giving and taking hits and 'disorder' results.  The firing mechanism was simple but gave reasonable results, I thought - aside from casualites,  a 6 on the 'to hit' dice caused disorder to the target for the next move, reducing their effectiveness, so with luck you could 'keep their heads down' while you advanced, unless you took a disorder yourself!    . 

Zouave brigade shooting its way forward..

 

On the other hand, my 'regular brigade' started off steadily advancing, crossed the river OK but then on hearing the firing as other brigades made contact, failed a string of command rolls and basically sat tight, going no further forward, even when my Divisional commander galloped over to give direct orders! I pictured my inexperienced commander perhaps trying and failing to persuade his brigadier that he really ought to finish lunch and get the men forward, and not get too involved with that looted whiskey bottle...

'Regular' brigade having a long lunch.. 

 

What with all the excitement I didn't take many pictures, but I can give an ideas of the main features of the game : essentially while my chaps either got embroiled in a firefight or sat things out, Tony was much more dynamic and aggressive, and made good use of his 'green' brigade on our left  - the 'green' units had lower 'stamina' (taking less hits before having to check morale), but were also more likely to get stuck in with a charge to contact, so Tony used them to lead the attack. 

Tony's 'cannon fodder' lead the charge

 

He expected them to be cannon-fodder, I think, hopefully weakening their opponents for the more experienced brigade to finish off - but one of the 'green' units charged in and just would not be repulsed, hanging in there for several turns of melee, which allowed their veteran regiment comrades to punch through the confederate line and take the ridge. Great work!  Tony then had another whole brigade coming up right behind, ready to storm over the ridge - the Confederate position on our left now  looked very fragile in  comparison. That forced Reg to move reserves over there, with the ironic result that a  great big gap opened up in the Rebel position in the middle, which my regular brigade could have just walked through, if only I had been able to get them to move! 

The ridge taken (top left), Rebs look hard-pressed! 

That was pretty much how it ended; the Confederate right was hard pressed by Tony's aggressive advance,  their left holding up well  in a firefight with my Zouaves. It occurred later that neither of us thought to send any units straight up the central turnpike and through the gap, maybe we both  assumed that would be storngly held and therefore avoided it - we assumed wrong! So the game was pretty much a draw between Confederate and Union, but in the competition between Union commanders, Tony won the prize and would assume command of  V Corps. Well deserved!   I was happy to have a learning experience with the rules and see how they worked,  and what tactics might work best,  and I thought it all went pretty well - except for those command rolls!  

 

view from the Confederate left

As already stated, I liked the simple mechanisms of the rules, which made it easy to get a fairly 'big battle' moving along, and with what seemed like a reasonable ACW period 'feel'.  I'd say the biggest drawback with the rules is the size of the rulebook, which led to a few instances of play being held up while players leafed through the book for a rule clarification. I gather there is quite a lot of 'fluff' and 'eye candy' in the rulebook, which slows down any search. Also the 'basic rules plus supplements' approach tends to muliply this effect, since you need to check in the supplement too, in case it overrules the main rulebook!. But those issues would lessen with further experience - Reg summed things up when he said he has just  played so many more games since finding these rules,  just because they run so briskly and simply, giving a decent chance of a clear outcome to the game. ( Incidentally, for a contrasting view of the same rules, I enjoyed a post from Trebian at Wargaming for Grown-Ups - in particular the comments below that post, which include a pretty good, positive and constructive  discussion between Trebian ( Graham) and Professor Phil Dutre : both making good points, I thought ).

I'm afraid I'm not going to rush out and spend £35(!) on the Black Powder rulebook  (and another £20 for a 7YW supplement?) - sorry Tony! But I'd be only too pleased to join the gents for more games - in fact there were discussions about an ECW game, using the related Pike and Shotte set, which sounds right up my street - watch this space. 

Just to round things off, Tony also took us through a try-out game of Blood Red Skies, the WW2 aerial combat game also from Warlord Games ( Tony is a big fan of Warlord, though rumours of him being on a commission from them are strongly denied..) .  I was very interested to try this, as WW2 aerial games are a favourite that I rarely get to play. 

opposing formations close..

 Please excuse the lack of a nice gaming mat in the pictures, but it was only a trial run.. The scenario was cut-down version of a Luftwaffe surprise attack on Manston in 1940 - Tony took the Germans with a formation of He111s escorted by Me110s,  while for the RAF Reg had Hurricanes (furthest from camera) and I had Spitfires and Boulton Paul Defiants - which were bound to be 'interesting' to use!  As you can see from the close ranges, we very quickly got to 'mix it' with the raiders : 

and getting stuck in!

 

Reg and I soon learned to be wary of the battery of cannon in the nose of the Me110 - Spitfires and Hurricanes were a bit under-gunned by comparison, so don't go for a frontal attack on them!  We lost a couple of Hurricanes and a Spitfire, I think, and were on the verge of having our whole formation broken and forced to retire, but just by the skin of out teeth we won by shooting down 2 of the 3 Heinkels and forcing the raiders to turn for home. A slightly pyrrhic victory! Good fun though, and interesting - admittedly there was quite a lot to take on board with absolutely no prior knowledge of the rules mechanisms, but I'd certainly give it another go.  The game takes an interesting approach to the eternal problem of depicting altitude, and the advantages of being higher than your opponent, and how to portray that in an essentally two-dimensional setup. They have a concept of planes being 'advantaged', 'disadvantaged' ( denoted by the 'nose up' or 'nose down' attitudes of the models ) or 'neutral' . This seems to roll up factors like height, speed and pilot ability into one of those 3 settings for each aircraft at any given point, and the players can spend 'actions' in their move to get into a better level of advantage - I think you can't shoot at another fighter unless you have a better level than them. That seemed quite an ingenious concept. Also worth noting that the rules group aircraft into units, with morale effects, so if losses get too high the unit will be forced to retire rather than every 'plane for himself', which I thought seemed right. So, another game that I'd be interested to try again, and test my supposed expertise in the subject matter. 

Overall that was a pretty good re-introduction to face-to-face gaming, and a very big thank-you is due to Tony and Reg inviting me, your enthusiasm  is highly infectious. Thanks both of you, that was really enjoyable!  Let's hope we can do it again before too long.   

Now I am trying to get back into a painting routine, hopefully finding a shady spot in the garden in the current hot weather. I have some French 7YW infantry progressing nicely, and a possible diversion into a completely different period and scale (oh dear..)  And still need to set up and play a WW2 Italian campaign game with Rapid Fire Reloaded - later this week, perhaps. Until then keep well, everyone.

Fnurban #32: Ranjit Singh: Sikh Warrior King

On a rare sunny day, today I went to that London and visited The Wallace Collection, for their exhibition Ranjit Singh : Sikh Warrior King.  And rather good it was, too. 

Putting it very briefly, Maharaja Ranjit Singh lived from 1780 to 1839, and carved out a Sikh empire ('roughly  the size of modern Germany')  encompassing the Punjab, uniting many smaller Sikh states and building a powerful state which acted as a buffer between British possessionss in India and Afghan and Russian influence beyond the Khyber Pass. 

He was a dynamic warrior, and developed a formidable army along modern Euopean lines, assisted by several Western soldiers, in particular former officers from Napoleonic France ( Ranjit Singh is sometimes referred to as 'The Napoleon of the East' as a result ). This army was designed to be more than a match for the forces of the East India Company, for example.   

I knew very little of this period, but  reviews of the exhibition  looked interesting, and it proved to be well worth a visit. There were quite a few 'arms and armour' exhibits, many of which are reputed to have belonged to Ranjit Singh himself,  and several interesting pictures involving military subjects, including one rather gory battle scene.   I'll show some of the photos I took :

 

The entrance is dominated by an enlarged version of a splendid picture included in the exhibition, showing Ranjit Singh and his court at Lahore. The picture shows quite a few of his soldiers, including very European style infantry, cavalry and artillery units drilling and firing in the fields  beyond the city walls.     

Battle of Sirhind, 1710

 The Sikhs had famously been a warrior race - the above picture illustrated that, showing a battle from 100 years before. In the centre, an enemy Mughal governor (riding the horse with its lower half  dyed red)  is pictured minus his head, which has been chopped off by a sword-weilding Sikh horseman. A version of the  picture is also enlarged to cover the wall of one of the rooms, so you can see every gory detail.

There was a good selection of arms and armour associated with Ranjit Singh himself :  swords, helmet, bow, pistol, musket. The pistol is interesting as its stock is of Indian make, but the lock is English; and the musket is interesting because despite the emphasis on modernity in the army, this personal weapon of the Maharaja is in fact a matchlock.  Given some rather lovely metalwork decoration on it, I suspect this weapon was more for show than actual use!   

   

 

This was a surprising exhibit - I had no idea that Quoits began as a battle weapon! The edges  were sharpened, and they would be thrown at enemy formations - quite nasty. And they could be kept in a handy stack on the conical hat - where they then doubled as armour. 

 More Sikh helmets - note the way the wearer's  top-knot is accommodated 

 

Armour for a Sikh mounted warrior - note the rectangular  plate armour, which was typical. There would be four plates strung toghether, making an all-round cuirass. Under that is a mail shirt. 

More splendidly-engraved muskets, again matchlocks, with powder-horn and a dagger.

 

Contemporary picture of a mounted warrior of Ranjit Singh's army 

Amritsar, home of the Sikhs' Golden Temple and part of Ranjit Singh's empire.

Portrait of Ranjit Singh in later life - 1830s. Note the Western style of the soldier's yellow jacket at the bottom.

Some of the 'Firanji'   ( Foreigners ) who were brought in to modernise the army - first is a Frenchman,   Jean-Francois Allard, who was a former officer in Napoleon's army, and was first commissioned to raise a corps  of dragoons and lancers, being then made a General and becoming a close confidante of Ranjit Singh. 

This splendid chap is Scots-American mercenary Alexander Gardner, who is of course wearing a tartan turban!

Gardner it seems wrote an eye-witness account of the political  chaos after Ranjit Singh died in 1839, a rapid series of assassinations of his successors led to the empire's collapse and annexation by the British after what we refer to as The Sikh Wars.  As a result of the British takeover, many of the riches of the Sikh empire passed to Britain,  and of course are now able to be shown in this exhibition. Among the British loot was the Ko-ih-Noor diamond, and the show includes a document which is in effect a 'receipt' for it, presumably an attempt to legitimise its acquisition.  There is also Ranjit Singh''s Golden Throne 

  

The British governor, Lord Dalhousie, was ordered to send the throne to Britain, but rather took a fancy to it himself, and supposedly tried to have a replica made and sent, so he could keep the real one! 

All in all quite a fascinating exhibition, and well worth a visit if the period is of interest. From a wargaming point of view, lots of inspiration, perhaps?  The Sikh army did end up fighting against the British after Ranjit Singh's death - and a good 'what if' might be to imagine him actually getting into a scrap with the East India Company army while he was in his prime?  Or with the Russians, perhaps if you also  have a Crimean War force?  The show will  be quite timely if you have acquired Andy Copestake's recently published and doubtless excellent Khalsa! A Guide to Wargaming the Anglo-Sikh Wars 1845-1846 and 1848-1849  

 Finally a view of one of the exhibition rooms - the enlargement of pictures to cover entire walls is very effective.  Using my National Art Pass discount, my ticket cost me £7, which was pretty good - normal price £14, though I suspect some might think the exhibition a little too small for that price. There are 'over 100' objects on display.     

It's also woth noting that the Wallace Collection itself is a rather amazing place, including a couple of rooms packed  full of great arms and armour from Europe and Asia,  and a reallyfine  collection of paintings and objets dart. It's like a sort of Mini V&A, and a madly over-the-top Victorian house interior absolutely rammed with 'stuff'  -the phrase 'Tart's Boudoir' springs to  mind, in the nicest possible way!   I made a resolution to go back and spend an afternoon looking at the regualr collections  - all this is 5 minutes from Oxford Street in Manchester Square, Central London. If you are interested in the period and find yourself in the area, I would thoroughly recommend a visit.   Meanwhile keep well, everyone.

Fnurban #31 Mr. Spectator and Mystifying Military Jargon

Many years ago I discovered  the works of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, in particular The Spectator, the daily paper which they jointly produced in London in 1711-1712.  Having started from a Penguin Classics edition with a small selection of their pieces, eventually I found a complete 'pocket edition' ( published around 1900) in six volumes containing all 555 numbers - but this has sat on my bookshelf mostly unread for well over 20 years!  Recently I made a resolution to actually read them, and have tried to do so as a typical reader would have done in 1711 - one issue per day, with my morning coffee.  I have been enjoying them and will keep up with my daily habit - it's like a small daily trip back in time to the London of 1711. The premise is that the paper is written by the titular gentleman ( who is never actually named ), who rarely speaks, but appears in many settings in London society and pays careful attention to what is being talked of. He has a 'club' of friends who meet at a coffee-house, as gentlemen of the time would, and who are a convenient mix of different sorts, allowing him to report from different sections of society - the most famous being 'Sir Roger de Coverley', an old-fashioned and mildly eccentric country squire. In a rather nice series of papers, Mr Spectator spent the month of July 1711 reporting from an extended visit to Sir Roger's country estate, before returning to the bustle of  'town'. 

Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

The Spectator is in effect the ancestor of all newspaper opinion columns ( and possibly internet blogs, too? ). Each issue consisted of a short essay on a topic of current interest, and it aimed to enlighten a rising middle-class readership,  and promote politeness, good manners  and civility, perhaps as a response to what was seen as the rather loose morals of  English society in the 'Restoration' period of the past few decades.  In this they were  highly successful, the paper was very popular from the start,  and no eighteenth or nineteeth century gentleman's ( or gentlewoman's, since the authors  made a particular effort to interest women readers )  library would be complete without an edition of the collected issues.  If you visit stately homes even today, where the library has been preserved you may still see them.  It spawned many an imitator in Britain and abroad in the following years, and of course the title was revived in the following century for a political magazine which still runs - albeit with an outlook that the original authors would perhaps not have agreed with..   

Sir Richard Steele (1671-1729)

Addison and Steele were literary men, but also  political 'insiders' who supported (and held government jobs in ) the Whig administration which had been in power for the past several years, and which had prosecuted the War of Spanish Succession and  appointed the Duke of Marlborough as commander of the British army in Flanders, during his period of great battles  at Blenheim, Ramilles, Oudenarde and Malplaquet.  As a result, the ongoing war does get some attention in the papers, often looking at the powerful influence of French fashions and manners, despite the ongoing hostilities. Recently I was interested by Spectator no. 165, published Saturday, 8th September 1711, in which Mr. Spectator protests at the number of French phrases being adopted in English:   'the present war has so adulterated our tongue with strange words, that it would be impossible for one of our great-grandfathers to know what his posterity have been doing, were he to read their exploits in a modern newspaper. Our warriors are very industrious in propagating the French language, at the same time that they are so gloriously successful in beating down their power'....  For my part, by that time a siege is carried on two or three days, I am altogether lost and bewildered in it, and meet with so many inexplicable difficulties, that I scarce know which side has the better of it.. 

He goes on to publish a letter which he says he had a copy of, from the year of  Blenheim, written by a young gentleman in the army to his father, a man of good estate and plain sense :     

SIR, upon the junction of the French and Bavarian armies they took post behind a great morass which they thought impracticable. Our general the next day sent a party of horse to reconnoitre them from a little hauteur, at about a quarter-of-an-hour's distance from the army who returned again to the camp unobserved through several defiles, in one of which they met with a party of French that had been marauding, and made them all prisoners at discretion. The day after a drum arrived at our camp, with a message which he would communicate to none but the general; he was followed by a trumpet, who they say behaved himself very saucily, with a message from the Duke of Bavaria. The next morning our army being divided into two corps, made a movement towards the enemy; you will hear in the public prints how we treated them, with the other circumstances of that glorious day. I had the good fortune to be in the regiment that pushed the gens d'armes. Several French battalions, who some say were a corps de reserve, made a show of resistance; but it only proved a gasconade, for upon our preparing to fill up a little fosse, in order to attack them, they beat the chamade, and sent us Carte Blanche. Their commandant, with a great many other general officers, and troops without number, are made prisoners of war, and will I believe give you a visit in England, the cartel not yet being settled. Not questioning but these particulars will be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon them, and am Your most dutiful son, &c. 

Mr Spectator continues The father of the young gentleman upon the perusal of the letter found it contained great news, but could not guess what it was.. ' he talks of a saucy trumpet, and a drum that carries messages: then who is this Carte Blanche?'...   'when he writes for money he knows how to speak intelligibly enough: there is no man in England can express himself clearer, when he wants a new furniture for his horse'.            

I thought this was all rather interesting - many wargamers with an interest in the 'horse and musket' period will be quite familiar with the military slang that confounds the soldiers' father, but it's fascinating to see how much of that language rather suddenly came into English, and mostly from the French, in quite a short period once the British got involved in wars on the continent in the 1690s and 1700s.  This sudden explosion of  martial jargon clearly raised eyebrows back in 'blighty', and it's easy to see parallels with the mass of new phrases and usages that came into the language  during the 1914-18 and 1939-45 wars  ( and who can forget 'Yomping' and 'Exocet' etc, from 1982? ). 

The use of letters is a speciality of the Spectator; often an issue would be based around correspondence received from 'readers', though equally often it's presumed that the letters were actually contrived by the authors themselves to add a little literary colour. But judging from a footnote in my edition, this example may well  be a real letter that had been passed on to Addison, who wrote this number of the paper. 

Well, it all amused me, and I hope it's of some interest to you, in turn. If you are interested, you can see the whole paper  on-line at Project Gutenberg. 

I will admit that not much time has been available for hobby activities recently, as we were away on holiday - but I did have the privilege of joining one one Jon Freitag's remote games last night, commanding a force of Sumerians and getting a 'driving lesson' on their  powerful, but somewhat unpredictable 'battle carts' . Great fun was had by all, and I'm sure Jon will put up his usual excellent battle report, In the meantime he passed on a picture from the heat of battle, as my cart unit crashed into their opposite number : 

when battle carts collide...

 

Many thanks to Jon, and the other players, for a great game!  I think I need to get back into a painting routine now, and also run a solo game or two, and I hope, report on them in the near future. In the meantime keep well, everyone. 

p.s. can't resist a little nudge at the General Election here in the UK tomorow: 

 

(only a joke, I thought it quite witty - let's not get into serious discussions. I hope all sides can take a little gentle ribbing - that should be part of a healthy democracy, after all..)