Proper Napoleonic gaming : Medina de Rio Seco, 1808

Last week I was lucky enough to have a session of 'proper' ( i.e. 'in person' ) gaming, courtesy of old buddies Tony and Reg, and hosted by Tony at his lovely home near Whitstable. We played a Napoleonic game using Black Powder rules and 15mm figures, and Tony's chosen scenario was  the battle of Medina de Rio Seco  (14th July 1808).  This was a clash between French and Spanish forces during the Peninsular War - Tony had based the game on a scenario from the Shako rules system,  I  took a slightly dim photo of the map:

 According to Wikipedia  a combined body of Spanish militia and regulars moved to rupture the French line of communications to Madrid. General Joaquín Blake's Army of Galicia, under joint command with General Gregorio de la Cuesta. 

The Spanish are divided into two distinct forces, with Blake's units [ in the scenario, Blake does not appear on the table, and Cuesta is Spanish C-in-C ]  on the hill centre-left,  Portago's brigade  on the Spanish baseline at top right,  and Cuesta with reinforcements coming up later. The lack of co-ordination between Cuesta and Blake opened up a gap which the French commander Bessieres spotted, and moved to exploit.

The French baseline is at the bottom, with two brigades  along it facing the hill and Lasalle's cavalry entering on the road, while a further formation under Mouton  is at centre right, threatening to get between the two Spanish contingents and sweep away the Spanish left wing.  The French also had reinforcements - a brigade of the Young Guard, due to arrive on their right.  

Reg and I divided the French between us, with me commanding the troops facing the hill and Reg leading  Lasalle's and Mouton's formations and the Young Guard, while Tony took command of the  Spanish. Here's a picture of the starting positions from my point of view, with my chaps in the foreground, Reg's force at far rght beyond the road, and Tony's Spanish atop the ridge in centre  and straddling the road, top centre. 

Most of what follows will inevitably be from my point of view and my memory of events, and I admit I took a slightly random set of photos during the game, but I hope I can give an idea of what transpired. 

I'm no Napoleonic expert, but of course I had the 'conventional wisdom' to know that Spanish infantry can be a bit rubbish ( their Militia units especially have weak morale ) , and looking at all my lovely French infantry lined up in assault columns with voltiguers out at the front, it seemed a no-brainer to order a general advance to sweep the Spanish off the hill.  But I had reckoned without a few things. First the wooded area, which slowed down the battalions trying to move through it, and thus disrupted co-ordination of my attack - obviously  I could not charge home all along the line at the same time.  Second, Tony had carefully lined his infantry units up in two lines,  meaning that when charged by my units, the front rank of Spanish units  would get combat bonuses for having friends in rear support. Suddenly the attacking elan of my French (in only a single line of units ) began to look like it might not be enough. And finally, I had no cavalry, but  Tony had a unit of Spanish heavy cavalry, who promptly charged downhill and crashed into my left-hand brigade. 

Spanish Heavy Cavalry coming down the slope (centre)..

    

Zut alors! Here they come!

I should point out that the French infantry unit in the above picture had succeeded in a die roll to hurredly form square when charged ( they only have 3 bases, so making an actual square formation on the table can't happen),   I should also mention that the figures are 15mm scale,  mostly from AB Figures  which are rather nice and very crisply well-detailed.  Many of them were painted by Stonewall Figures / Capitan, and some by Tony himself - Tony's work included those bicorne-wearing Spanish Heavy Cavalry in the picture, and I think you can see what a good job he did with them! 

A nice feature of the Black Powder (2nd Edition) rules was the handling of French attack columns and skirmishers - the 'Attack Column' formation makes the unit more likely to pass its orders dice-roll and advance, the skirmisher base out front causes a reduction in enemy musketry die rolls, and when 'contact' is made the skirmish base is simply removed, simulating the voltiguers 'merging back' into the column as the charge goes in.  I thought that all worked pretty well and looked 'right'.  

What didn't work so well was my attacks - what with attacking uphill, trying to fend off the Spanish cavalry, the woods breaking up my line and the well-supported Spanish first line, most of my attacking battalions made very little impression on the enemy!  There was hard fighting, and the Cavalry were eventually destroyed by my musketry ( I think Tony allowed them to 'charge home' against the square as a test of how the combat rules handled the situation, which probably weakened them ),  but losses mounted up, several of my units reached 'Shaken' status, and all too soon my left-hand brigade under Merle had 50% of its units Shaken, thus 'breaking' the brigade and forcing it to retire. Not a good start!

Meanwhile on our right, Reg was having troubles of his own, in particular with Lasalles' two cavalry regiments, which he repeatedly tried to order to sweep onto the end of the hill and take the Spanish line in the flank and rear, only for them to repeatedly fail their orders rolls, and stay pretty much stationary for most of the game!  One of those quirks of the Black Powder orders/initiative mechanism, we can only assume that the cavalry commander  weras sick (or drunk!)  on the day, and/or that all messengers sent to them with orders were incapacitated and didn't get through! We realised that we probably should have sent Bessieres himself to see what was going on and urge them on ( C-in-C can re-roll orders dice ), but he was too busy elsewhere, it seemed! 

Above is a view from Reg's side of the table -  the two recalcitrant cavalry units on the hill  (upper left) - to add to the annoyance, they had stopped close to a Spanish battaltion which was forced into square but was able to keep sniping at them for several moves - us French commanders became rather obsessed with trying to kill that single unit! In the centre of the picture, the Young Guard  faces off against Cuesta's rather mixed quality  Spanish infantry.

Also on Reg's side,  here are ( I think)  Portago's Spanish brigade coming into contact with Mouton's French line infantry - who could have done with some help from those cavalry too! 

Reg managed to break Portago's brigade, but Cuesta's reinforcements arrived in numbers and had to be countered by the Young Guard, and there was long and hard, but good-humoured  fighting between regular opponents Tony and Reg, who know each other's tricks pretty well after many years!  Below we see the Young Guard doing battle with Cuesta's infantry - the number of casualty marker  figures and 'smoke puffs' denoting Disordered units are testament to the ferocity of the combat. 

Back to my side, and it all got very touch-and-go, my largest brigade (Verdier) could  not fight its way onto the hill, and took so many casualties that it was very close to breaking - which would have destroyed my entire wing. I became a bit more sensible at this point and pulled the most battered units back, and got Verdier busy rallying the shaken units, while a couple of less-damaged  units traded volleys with Spanish infantry.  The dice went in my favour at the crucial moment, with Tony unable to shoot up my chaps much more, and failing a couple of orders rolls which might have allowed his infantry to pursue us down the hill and finish off Verdier's brigade.  I guess the Spanish units felt comfortable holding that hill, and decided to stay there!   As you can see in the picture below, my chaps had pulled back quite a long way fron the hill.  

In the distance you can also see how Reg's wing has progressed despite hard fighting, with  the Young Guard toe-to-toe with Cuesta's men at top right - it had been an epic fight.  So epic in fact that having started the game after lunch, breaking for dinner at the local pub, we went back to the table for an hour or so after dinner - I think play only paused for sleep about 11pm - and back again after breakfast the following morning for a last hour or so!   The victory condtions depend on the number of 'broken' brigades on each side -  in the end I think I had lost Merle's brigade, Reg had lost Mouton,  but we had broken the Spanish brigades of  Portago and Masseda, and the final blow came when my battered brigade under Verdier managed to finally break Tony's brigade ( Cagigal ) on the ridge.  Three-two to the French, which the scenario defined as an honourable draw,  and that felt about right.   Tony and Reg are hard-bitten old campaigners and played a great game, though the dice weren't always with Reg - especially regarding those cavalry, still resolutely stationary on the hill to the end. I think I was much too confident of the abilities of the French infantry and nowhere near cunning enough - I should have split my infantry either side of the woods and attacked in two waves for rear support, hopefully crashing into the Spanish at two points simultaneously (mind you, still not sure how I would have dealt with those Spanish cavalry! ).   My first Napoleonic game in many a long year, so I'm chalking it up as a learning experience, or that's my excuse at least!  Here's a post-game picture of my fellow commanders, with the French cavalry still rooted to that hill at centre left..

Tony (left) and Reg : beach hut prices unknown, sadly

 

Many thanks guys,  especially Tony for excellent hosting and scenario planning, and to Reg for putting up with my beginner's command style!  

I thoroughly enjoyed the game, and great conversation across the table and over dinner etc. My second game with Black Powder and  I enjoyed playing these rules - I do like the simplicity of the combat and firing rolls with simple D6s and straightforward modifiers, such that after just a few turns you can pretty much remember the dice rolls you need for hits and saves.  The 'orders' rolls I think are good too,  even though they can throw up unusual events such as those French cavalry refusing repeatedly to move! We should have got our C-in-C to go and give them an earful and re-roll...  As discussed before, a slight downside is the plethora of 'special rules' used to tailor the basic rules to the specific period and different troop types,  which  can lead to an awful lot of paging back and forth in the rulebook and the relevant period supplement.  The game threw up an interesting discussion on the timing of infantry going into square - in the rules this only must occur when they are actually  charged by cavalry, not simply when within charge range, for example.  That means an infantry unit in line can advance towards a cavalry unit and try to shoot it up, which seems a pretty 'brave' ( in the Yes, Minister  sense ) thing to do! Tony and Reg have been discussing a 'house rule' modification to that one, perhaps to vary the die roll required to form square depending how close the enemy cavalry start from, which seems a reasonable idea. With a whole bunch of optional rules already there, adding one or two in-house variations seems entirely OK. 

Final shot - those Spanish cavalry causing mayhem on my left wing.. huzzah!

 Once again many thanks to Tony and Reg, that was a great game and a great day! We might manager another get-together later in the year, we think, and that would be very welcome - some talk of ECW? that would be interesting! 

Meanwhile one or two other hobby things to get back to after a lot of social and domestic 'real life' over the Easter period - for example, orders are being drafted for a big battle around Prague in Chris 'Nundanket's Bohemia 1757 campaign. It will be fascinating to see how our orders translate to action on his gaming table...   And still lots of scenery to be painted for my 'Risorgimento' Italy 1859 project. So, I hope plenty to write up in future posts on this blog. Until then keep well, everyone. 

Fnurban #36 : What's in a Name?

There's been something of a pause in hobby activities in the past few weeks - largely just due to 'daily life' happening, really  ( 'Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans..' as a working-class hero may, or may not, have said ).  A little progress on painting 6mm figures for the Risorgimento project, but nothing finished and alas, no gaming.  But there has been a little 'military history' interest, with a common thread, that being my family name. 

I think I was slightly aware that one of Wellington's staff in the Peninsular bore the name Barnes - I think I remembered him being mentioned at 'No.1, London', Apsley House, which is of course well worrh a visit if you are in central London. But recently, and  possibly after Jon Freitag's ACW Shiloh game that I took part in,  I happened to search on-line for 'General Barnes'. There was indeed an ACW character of that name, commander of the Union army's 1st Division, who disgraced himself at Gettysburg, I'm afraid. However,  I was more interested to see some details of the Napoleonic officer, Sir Edward Barnes (1776-1838).  His Wikipedia page makes a good introduction.  He seems to have had a distinguished military career, rising to be Wellington's  'fire-eating adjutant general'  in the Waterloo campaign, and was wounded in that battle. Subsquently he spent seven years as Governor of Ceylon, and was Commander-in-Chief in India in 1832-1833.   Here he is, in a portrait by William Salter 

Need I say there is emphatically no resemblance to me? ( except perhaps what is euphemistically called a  'high forehead' )  And no evidence of any family connection - my ancestors were all  lowly farm labourers in Norfolk at the time.  But I was struck by a couple of nice coincidences in his biography.  Firstly,  that he was briefly MP for Sudbury at the end of his life - Sudbury being my adopted home town. As an aside, he was first elected in a controversial by-election in 1834, which was covered by a young newspaper reporter named Charles Dickens, and probably inspired Dickens' fictional election at  'Eatanswill' in The Pickwick Papers.         

And secondly, General Barnes died at his home at Walthamstow in 1838, and is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary's Church, Walthamstow. His gravesite is marked by a large monument, with an inscription giving details of his achievements in life.  It happens that before moving to Sudbury, I too lived at Walthamstow, for about 10 years ( I suspect his house was a bit grander than my Warner Estates maisonette ), and I must have walked past St. Mary's churchyard a good many times, all unknowing. It has occurred that I seem to be following my illustrious namesake around, and it might be fun to do a little research into his life and career. By way of a start, a few weeks ago I paid a visit to the church, and found the monument : 

 as you can see it's quite impressive, but alas the inscription is by no means easy to read

- but it's a start, at least. It might be nice to find out some more.  Perhaps my new friends at the National Army Museum ( well, I paid for a membership there, mainly to donate some money and to get a discount in the cafe when attending their talks! ) can help..

Another thread of research is a bit closer to home - I have done a bit of family history investigation  over the years, and have recently been passed copies of  the RAF service records of a relative (with whom I also share surname), who was a mid-upper gunner in Lancaster bombers in 1943 and 1944. I  have his service record document which records his joining up in 1942, and then the sequence of postings to various reserve, reception and training establishments, finally arriving at No. 57 squadron  at RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire in late 1942.  Scampton is famous as the base at which No. 617  'The Dambusters' squadron was formed in early 1943, and several crews joined no. 617 from no.57 squadron, so my relative may very well have been familiar with many  'Dambusters', though he remained with No.57.  He stayed with the squadron until July 1943, so I assume he completed a 'tour' of operations, and then transferred to various OTUs (Operational Training Units), perhaps as an instructor, before joining no.9 squadron ( the RAF's senior bomber unit ) in July 1944.  

All that information is interesting enough, but what is really fascinating to me, is a series of copies of  the squadron's Operation Records, for operations which my relative took part in. These give the date and target of the mission, the number of the squadron's aircraft involved,  and a summary of how the operation went - and then a separate section for each aircraft, giving details of crew members, time 'up' and 'down', whether they reached the target, time and altitude of bombing, whether results could be observed, and bomb load carried. 

As an example, here is the squadron's summary for the operation undertaken on the night of 3rd/4th March 1843 :

BOMBING OPERATION: TARGET - HAMBURG
Seven aircraft were detailed to attack HAMBURG. All took off, but one returned early with rear turret u/s and an oil leak in one engine. The other six aircraft reached the target area. Visibility was good and all saw the River Elbe and the dock system. The P.F.F. markers were clearly seen and bombed. All crews report a good concentration of bombs on the markers and report huge fires which could be seen over 100 miles away on the return journey. All returned to base except 'M' which was sent on to Wittering to land on the long runway there because of the inability to get the flaps down for landing. It landed safely there. Photographs taken on this raid show a large mass of fires with little ground detail. Those plotted (in all squadrons in Command ) show that the main concentration of bombing must have been on the little town of Wedel on the Elbe about 12 miles West of Hamburg. 

And for the aircraft in which my relative flew : 

Time up : 19:15, down 00:31. River Elbe identified and T.I. markers seen. Bombed concentration of markers at 21:35 hrs from 20,500ft. Bombing was concentrated around the markers. Bomb Load:  1 x 4,000lb H.C. + 96 x 30lb I.B. 

[  'P.F.F.' means Path Finder Force,  'T.I.' is Target Indicator, 'H.C.' I think means 'High Compression' (i.e High Explosive )  and 'I.B.' is Incendiary Bomb ]

I have Alfred Price's excellent introductory book Battle Over The Reich about the RAF and USAAF bombing campaigns over Germany, and he specifically discussed this raid - stating that the Pathfinder Force aircraft had problems with their new H2S centimetric radar sets, which were supposed to give an accurate picture of the features on the ground over which they were flying. The H2S operators were confused by low tides uncovering sandbanks which 'produced the appearance of  a river narrowing far downstram of Hamburg' . Also at Wedel 'Army engineers had dammed a small mill stream nearby to produce a large lake resembling in shape the Alster Lake in the centre of Hamburg... the majority of the raiders released their loads on the decoy, obliterating Wedel itself and several of the nearby villages' .  It seems from the squadron summary above that the failure of this mission was very soon known to Bomber Command.  No consolation to the unfortunate inhabitants of Wedel of course - and those of Hamburg had only a temporary reprieve before the horrors of the highly successful ( from the RAF point of view )  Operation Gomorrah in the following July.

I think the above gives a flavour of the information I am looking through - and perhaps the mixture of fascination and unease which they give.  I suspect that a big factor in our interest in military history ( or any history come to that ) is to consider 'what was it like to be there', and the sort of details available here help hugely in creating a picture in the mind of what the young men ( my subject being only about 20 at the time ) involved were going through,  and also, it must be said, of the destruction that they brought to the cities and people of Germany (look at the 'bomb load' details for just one aircraft,  multiply by several hundred aircraft  per operation, and think of the effect of them on the ground: huge fires which could be seen over 100 miles away ).  The amount of information available on-line on the RAF bombing campaign is impressive, including  from the  International Bomber Command Centre at Lincoln, which I now hope to visit. The records I am looking at give the ID number of every aircraft involved, and so far  a simple on-line search has easily turned up information on the fate of each one of them - suffice it to say that the operational life of a Lancaster bomber in 1943, even if not actually lost in action, was usually  measured in months.  Very sadly, the same goes for the crews, and the fascination of following my late relative's tour of duty is overshadowed by the knowledge that he 'failed to return' from a mission in July 1944, aged only 21. 

 

As an illustration of perhaps the 'small world' of Bomber Command and the amount of information available,  the above picture is from Wikipedia's page on 57 Squadron, and depicts  Flying Officer R.W. Stewart, a wireless operator on a Lancaster of No. 57 Squadron based at RAF Scampton speaking to the pilot from his position in front of the Marconi T1154/R1155 transmitter/receiver set :  it so happens that my relative flew on one mission in the same aircraft as F/O Stewart.  I am gradually reading through the records I have been given and transcribing extracts involving my late relative - it really is a very interesting, and sobering, exercise. When I was 20, living at a university and doing the final year of my degree seemed fairly stressful - I really didn't know I was born, did I? 

Aside from that, there has been a tiny bit of hobby activity, as I have made very small steps forward with painting my recently-acquired  Commission Figurines figures ( from their Napoleonic and ACW  ranges) for the 1859 Austrians vs. Piedmontese war in Italy, 

 

Here they are on the coffee-stirrer painting sticks ( always keep your coffee stirrers, I have a bundle of 'em ).  So far they've been primed, the infantry have been given their tunics/greatcoats and the cavalry horses have been painted. Still quite a long way to go, and xmas shopping, card-writing  and socialising has been getting in the way a bit, but  I will try to keep finding some time for them. 

I'm hoping to squeeze in one more post before Xmas, even if it's only a picture of a small Xmas tree - and maybe a little more painting progress. There is even a rumour of possible remote gaming.. we shall see.  Until then, keep well and enjoy the mince pies, everyone.

Fnurban #19: If Books Could Talk

 Real life -  albeit some pleasant stuff related to birthdays  -  has been getting in the way of hobbies recently, hence my second attempt at 'Kirchendorf'/Cheriton has not been played yet. But in the meantime an interesting little bookshop find came up.  I happened to be in Muswell Hill, London,  looked in at the Oxfam bookshop there, and chanced upon this :

 

 

Professor Sir Charles Oman's 1929 Studies in the Napoleonic Wars - a set of essays on various aspects of the period. Presumably not particularly rare or collectable but it looked interesting, and a nice old-looking edition in reasonable condition - so I paid the princely sum of £3 and took it home. 

On closer insprection, the volume  turned out to be a first edition from 1929, and there was a small label stuck to the inside of the cover, presumably denoting a former owner :  'Mr. L.K.J. Cooke,  Pembroke College, Oxford'.

 

Well, that was intriguing - I wonder who he was?  Not so many years ago, that would be the end of the story - but now we have the world wide web, and search engines...

With just a few minutes searching, I came up with a couple of interesting documents : first the King Edward's School Chronicle of June 1972.  It seems King Edward's was a prominent boys' Grammar School in Birmingham, and the  'Chronicle' looks to be the school magazine. It records the retirement of Mr.  L.K.J. Cooke after a splendid 28 years on the school staff, since 1944, and it confirms He was educated at Emmanuel School and Pembroke College, Oxford , where he took a second class honours degree in modern history in 1934.   Bingo!  We have our man.  

There follows a nice little sketch of the personality of the man ( the 'L' was for Leslie ). It states that  he was very much a military figure, always immaculately dressed and groomed in the style of an army officer wearing " civvies."  He also commanded the school's C.C.F. ( Combined Cadet Force )  contingent, and was awarded the OBE for his services. Indeed, later in the magazine there appears an article on the history of the school's C.C.F, the author signing themself 'L.K.J.C.'   He clearly had a  head for business, and for his 'retirement' he had bought a preparatory school in Brentwood, which he would presumably have planned to run himself.  I assume that if he gained his degree in 1934, he would have been born around 1913, and by 1972 be aged about 60.   Presumably long gone now, of course - or he'd be 110 by now! 

If anyone fancies to read the whole article - or indeed the whole magazine, and be transported back to the doings of an English Grammar School 50 years ago, it is here.   I have not read it all myself, so I can't guarantee that the content will meet what might be called 'current attitudes and values'. The past is, indeed, another country.. 

And there's more - a further search turned up a personal memoir website by one Robert Darlaston, who was a pupil at King Edward's school in the 1950s, and has written  ( in about 2009 ) quite a long entry on his time there, 1951-1959, and a postscript relating a visit to the school 50 years on. Of course his time there coincided with that of 'LKJC' , and there are indeed some mentions of our man: Our form master in Shell ‘C’ was Mr L.K.J. Cooke, a kindly man with a velvet toned voice and a leisurely speech delivery.   In consequence, unkind schoolboys had nicknamed him “Slimy”, but he was an expert at easing new boys into school life.  There's a short passage and photo concerning the C.C.F. - but it's the RAF section and their attmempts to fly a glider, which do not seem to to have involved LKJC. But there is one final lovely nugget of pure gold - a detail from the 1959 school photograph :

 

This picture evokes some fond memories,for those of us who took part in similar exercises - I still have a copy of an  equivalent picture from 1977, marking the centenary, no less, of my school ( a much less grand institution than King Edward's, I should say ), and I'm sure everyone knew the story that it should be possible to appear twice in the picture, by standing at one end and then running around the back to the other end, as the panoramic camera swivelled on its tripod. Whether that was actually possible, and if so whether anyone achieved it without also achieving a spell in detention,  I don't know.    

The caption states that LKJC is 3rd from right among the masters, so I think we have him :

 

He looks a decent chap, doesn't he? Not a tyrant, I hope, and clearly a man with an abiding interest in  matters military. It occurs that as a student at Oxford in the early 1930s, he may even have attended lectures by Sir Charles  Oman, who was the pre-eminent military historian of the day, and had been a professor of Modern History at Oxford since 1905 - though he was also the MP for the University of Oxford constituency from 1919 to 1935, which may have limited his academic work. All the same, it's nice to imagine the possible link. 

This has been a thoroughly pleasant and interesting little diversion, and a great  example of the ability  of the internet to allow us to waste time, albeit  in a pleasurable  and rewarding way. Now I just have to read the book, and learn about Oman's ideas on 'British Line vs French Column' ( later de-bunked by wargaming's own Paddy Griffith, I am told? ),  and as I do so, I can try to picture its first reader, back in 1930s Oxford - I wonder what he would make of me?  And I wonder how it came to be in Oxfam, Muswell Hill, on a winter's afternoon  nearly 90 years later ? That's another story, presumably - if only books could talk. 

Next time, I hope to finally give an account of '2nd Kirchendorf' and my impressions of the Twilight of the Divine Right rules - until then, keep well, everyone.    

 

Fnurban #17 : Free Rules and well-stocked Magazines

This week I picked up the latest issue ( no. 418, October 2022 ) of Wargames Illustrated magazine, and found an interesting suprise: it features a complete set of rules for Napoleonic wargames. These are Valour and Fortitude  by Jervis Johnson and the Perry Twins, which have been specially commissioned by the magazine.  This issue  naturally goes big on the whole concept, including a feature and Q&A article on Jervis Johnson,  a scenario suggestion and  battle report of the same scenario played by the authors, and army lists and  'special rules' for French and Prussian armies. 

 

As the magazine says, 'everything you need to play intriguingly simple Napoleonic big battles'.  Of course I'm not strictly a Napoleonic gamer, but this is an interesting concept, so I am reading the rules and the articles.  Jervis says in his introduction to the rules 'I said it might be interesting to come up with a shorter set of rules designed to fit onto just four sides of A4'.   Well, technically he does just that - the core rules are on just four A4 pages, though they are pretty closely printed! No room for pretty pictures here, it's all in the tightly-written text. 

don't try to read this, buy the mag - or there's a free download!

Actually there's a bit of cheating here, as there are quite a lot of 'special rules' which are included in the separate  Army Lists articles  - given that the 'special rules'  include those for artillery firing canister and infantry skirmishing or forming square, you could argue they should really be in the core rules! But of course this doesn't really mattter, you get everything one way or another if you buy the magazine.

I read the rules, and  I can report that they passed the important test of  'finished before the bath water got cold' (!) , and that they read perfectly well. They use a brigade structure for the armies - units are grouped into brigades and activations ( and morale )  apply at brigade level, which I like as it seems the right for the period and 'bigger' battles. And the mechanisms are simple; both firing and melee are 'attacks' with similar procedures, simple D6 die rolls.   The more powerful the attack, the more dice rolled - but not 'buckets of dice'- which may inflict losses. After a certain number of losses the target unit becomes 'shaken',  and the parent brigade in turn suffers a 'setback' , after a number of which the brigade too may become shaken. Commanders can then attempt to rally shaken units/brigades -  I won't go into more details, you can get the rules yourself easily enough.

For an idea of how a basic  mechanism works I looked at a French Line Infantry ( 1812-1815 ) unit firing at a Prussian counterpart - essentially the French get 3 dice, with a 'hit' on a roll of 4,5 or 6, so I suppose they should expect to get one hit, maybe  two, for their volley. A Prussian Line Infantry unit has 'Tenacity' factor of 4, meaning that they would become 'shaken' after 4 hits. So, two or three decent  volleys from the French unit should do it - seems fairly reasonable? The Prussians' musketry ratings are the same, so an exchange of fire between these two should be evenly-matched. 

There's no specified base sizes, but unit sizes are specified in the army lists, e.g. that French Line Infantry unit is 24 to 36 figures, and the possible unit formations are defined very simply but effectively. Move distances and ranges are given in inches and I assume for 28mm figures,  but it's suggested that for smaller figures and/or smaller tables, you can halve the distances ( or use cm for inches ), and/or halve the strength of units.  This all seems very flexible and straightforward, and I think that's pretty much the same throughout the rules.

Of course I have not actually played them : but Norm has, over at Battlefields and Warriors ( which may of course have rendered my comments redundant! ) , with a positive verdict - well worth a read, as ever. I couldn't help noticing that the magazine provides army lists and a scenario for French vs. Prussians c.1813, and the magazine's recent issues have included sample sprues of Warlord Games 'Epic' French and Prussian Waterloo figures - indeed, Norm used his collection of the same figures for his game. I have a feeling that the combination of these rules with the Epic figures range might be a winner - though that is perhaps  not so helpful  for sales of Perry figures or Warlord rules! 

You can download the rules, army sheets ( also Austrians and Russians, I think ) and scenarios from perry-miniatures.com for free,  but I think it would also be polite to buy this issue of the magazine if available,  to reward the work they have done - and get a nice glossy-printed copy of the rules booklet, plus the other articles I mentioned above.  About £6 for a decent set of rules and background ( and the usual selection of other  articles too ) is not too painful, is it?

 

top  piece from Brian Cameron in MW473..

 While talking about magazines, I have continued to buy most issues of the three mainstream wargaming magazines in recent months, when I see them, and am quite glad to support them. In particular  I think John Treadaway is doing pretty well  at Miniature Wargames. He has a regular squad of excellent writers like  Conrad Kinch ( whose  Send Three and Fourpence in particular is always interesting ) , Arthur Harman, Dave Tuck and Jon Sutherland ( it was interesting that Jon's Command Decision, usually historically-set column recently used a fantasy setting, I liked the 'cross-over' effect ).  And then in September's MW473 there was a really, really good piece by Brian Cameron on Wellington in India, called Sepoys and Soldiers. This was inspired by Brian's rules for the 'Maharatta' game at Salute last year - now I am not going to rush out and start gaming this period, but the piece is actually a bit of a masterclass in rules/game design and how to think about the subject. How about the bullet points below, for example  ( if the publishers object to my reproducing  their text here, I will of course remove it ) : 

 

Those should be in every rule-writer's mind, shouldn't they? Brian's piece runs to 8 pages, and I thought it was worth the price of the mag on its own, pretty much! 

 

 

has anyone seen this mag?

Having covered the other two, I'd better mention Wargames Soldiers and Strategy too - but oh dear, where is it these days?   I bought WSS 120 ( June/July 2022 ) as normal in my local WH Smith,  but what happened  then? There are still a couple of copies of issue 120 in the shop, but no sign of WSS121, and the same applies in a couple of other branches I've tried - and by now, shouldn't we be seeing Issue 122  for Oct/Nov ?  On the WSS Website,   WS121 'Warfare in the Age of Arthur' only fairly  recently seemed to appear as 'out now' ( with no dates on the cover image ), and the 'where to buy' button for the magazine gives no details of stockists.  I wonder if there has been a falling-out with distributors who supply the retailers like WHS ( other retailers are available, as they say ).   Has anyone else had this, ahem,  'issue'?  I hope WSS is doing OK.. Meanwhile, The Arthurian issue looks quite interesting, even if 'not my period' - I may have to  put in an online order, and we'll see what happens. 

I know I promised last time to report on my experience with In Deo Veritas rules and a 30YW transplant of Cheriton, but I'm afraid 'time and space, dear boy' has intervened rather - including a vey nice week in Shropshire, I admit. But the game will go ahead - I am hoping to play it ( hmm..start it ) tomorrow. So I do hope to bring you a report soon, honest.... In the meantime keep well, eveyone - and maybe even  buy a magazine?