WAB is dead, long live WAB

Well, it finally happened – if one is to draw any conclusions from the somber message at the website, yesterday Forge World decided to pull the plug on Warhammer Historical. To be perfectly honest, nobody should be surprised by the decision. The surprise lies rather in the fact that the entire process took so long. After all, the writing was on the wall the second Games Workshop closed down "real" Warhammer Historical and gave the custody of its rulesets to Forge World. Lukewarm reception of WAB2 and appearance of trinity consisting of "Hail Ceasar", "War and Conquest" and "Clash of Empires" (let's face it, Warhammer Ancients was what Warhammer Historical was always about) sealed the company’s fate.

Quick glance at the news boards seems to confirm my opinion - even the usually reactionary crowd at TMP seems to be receiving the news in same manner one would when hearing that a beloved relative who suffered from long and life-threatening health condition has finally passed away. Sad but expected, may WAB and all its siblings rest in peace.

How will demise of Warhammer Historical affect me personally? Only to the degree I will allow it to influence my gaming. The publications are still on my bookshelf, the miniatures are still standing in my display cabinet, Saxons in ongoing campaign will still make another attempt to cross the river as soon as I paint the buildings for the village... As far as I can see, there is really no reason for me to care about Games Workshop's decision to put Warhammer Historical to its grave.

At the same time, I can't help but feel that the whole thing really stinks. It's one thing to shut down a company you are for whatever reasons no longer interested in running. It's something completely different to shut it down without any warning and pulling down all the supporting materials (often produced by fans themselves) at the same time. The FAQ:s are gone. The erratas are gone. One can only hope that the guys at Forge World will make them available again on their own site, but at the moment there is plenty of reasons to be upset as a former WH customer.

First taste of General de Brigade

There are times when I have serious concerns about my approach to wargaming. My General de Brigade-project is a perfect case in point. I bought the ruleset some six year ago. Never read it, but decided nevertheless that it would be THE Napoleonic ruleset for me. Started painting 6mm Adler miniatures shortly after that decision and yesterday I was finally able to play my first real game.

The scenario

For the inaugural game we used first scenario from first of scenario books for General de Brigade - Hilaire's assault on villages of Ober Laichling and Unter Laichling, which were part of the battle at Eckmuhl. In my opinion it's a perfect introductory scenario to the ruleset. It is relatively small - about ten batallions and some artillery on each side. French side enjoys better troop quality, but that is balanced by Austrian advantage in regard of artillery and the fact that they field the only cavalry unit on the battlefield.

The objective of the scenario is simple - French need to take both villages and the high ground behind them. The Austrians need to stop the French. In other words, the scenario is perfect tool for training of both the defensive and offensive tactics.

Initial deployments

As a French commander without a clue, I decided to keep things simple. Two brigades would concentrate on Unter Laichling, take it as quickly as possible, then press on to the hill. Austrians positioned at Ober Laichling would in the meantime be pinned down in place by my last remaining brigade and hopefully be cut off by the time I took the high ground behind them.

 
The game begins

Part of the fun of Napoleonic games at this level (with individual battalions as maneuver elements) lies in the intricacies of initial deployment. General de Brigade offers full scope of possibilities in this area - battalions can deploy in line, columns of companies/divisions, squares and different types of open order/skirmish formations.

Selection of appropriate formation and correct orders (assault, engage, move, support, hold, retreat) is essential for success. My main assault formation was formed in following fashion: brigade in front was under engage orders, formed in single line, four battalions abreast, protected by its skirmish screen. It was supported by second brigade formed in columns by division to its rear. The idea behind that deployment was for front brigade to soften up Unter Laichling's defenders with musket fire. Once that goal had been achieved, the Austrians would get a taste of the bayonets of the rear brigade.

Ober Laichling would be engaged by two light battalions deployed in open order. The advantage of that formation is that troops deployed in this manner shoot as effectively as conventional line formation, but are themselves harder to hit due to looser ranks.

French assault formation
(seemed like such a brilliant idea at the time)

Austrians are initially deployed in rather predictable manner - one brigade each in and around the villages, the rest on the high ground. To my surprise, L. and H. choose to deploy their "village" brigades in front of build up areas, a decision which would have some consequences. Cavalry reserve is deployed behind the hill, out of the sight of French commander.

Austrian troops at Unter Laichling

Austrian reserve on the high ground
behind the villages

The game

Events of the game can be described in a couple of sentences. My main assault force marched slowly but surely toward their destination and was immediately fired upon by H.'s 6-pounder battery. My skirmish screen rushed forward, got too close to Austrian main line and was promptly repulsed, suffering 25 percent casualties. This exposed my battalions in line to artillery fire, increasingly accurate as they closed the distance. My leftmost battalion was severely mauled and broke as soon as my formation came into Austrian musket range. It failed to recover (some bad dice rolling on my part resulted in its dispersion during the rally attempt). However, the remaining battalions of front brigade engaged in a firefight with Austrian infantry and duly forced one of opposing battalions to beat hasty retreat.

  Almost there…

The moment for the assault on Unter Laichling has now arrived... and my lacking knowledge of the rules was ruthlessly exposed. While setting up my formation, I was aware of the fact that my second line would have to pass through the battalions in front. To be able to do that, both units participating in the interpenetration have however to make a so called Formation Test. Failure results in unformed units, which are pretty much helpless and need to spend one turn to reform. Horrid dice rolling resulted in five out of  seven battalions becoming unformed. Luckily the two battalions that managed to keep cohesion belonged to the assault brigade. Unluckily, one of them broke due to casualties taken just before it came into contact with the Austrian line, while the other one faltered in its pre-charge test and refused to move forward. A complete French fiasco was now a fact.

 
Stalled French assault, Austrian reinforcements
can be seen marching in the background

In the meantime, another type of engagement took place at Uber Laichling. My light battalions, deployed in open order advanced toward Austrian position and engaged the enemy. L. countered by sending his light cavalry regiment toward my flank, forcing me to form square with my leftmost battalion. The other battalion kept on fighting and even managed to break the opposing Austrian battalion. Nevertheless, both I and my opponents recognized the fact that my position was precarious, to say the least - with cavalry threatening my flank and Austrian reinforcements with clearly hostile intentions moving toward me, it was dubious I could stay in contact with the enemy without risking total annihilation of the brigade.

Left flank - French light infantry in precarious position

Overall picture at the end of the game

Austrian perspective at Unter Laichling

"Luckily" we never found out the fate of my stranded assault force and its exposed flank protectors, because at that time we decided to break off the engagement due to usual bane of all inconclusive tabletop battles - we were hungry and wanted to eat dinner. :-)

The ruleset

So... was my rather hasty decision to nominate General de Brigade as my Napoleonic ruleset of choice all those years ago a correct one? It's far too early to give a definitive answer to that question, but the first impression is absolutely a positive one. There is nothing revolutionary about this set of rules, in fact I would go as far as saying that it's rather conventional both in regard of game sequence and mechanics. However, it has to be said the same time that it manages to deliver that distinct Napoleonic feeling and that is the main selling point for me.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the basics rules do make perfect sense and are therefore quite easy to absorb. Command and control, movement, formation changes and firing are based on simple game mechanics, which most players should be able to memorize without difficulties after a couple of games. Charges and melees do seem a bit involved and require some fiddling with distances between units and morale checks, but I guess it's unavoidable for a ruleset at this unit level. The difficult part will be in remembering all the "chrome" rules of which there are quite a few, but since they add value to the game, then even that should be achieved with time without any problems. Overall, we all agreed that General de Brigade is a solid ruleset and we are looking forward to next French attempt to take those pesky villages of Laichling.

Keep it simple, stupid

I don't know about you, but most of my wargaming projects have a tendency to stop to a grinding halt long before they even get their first test run on the tabletop. Even those few projects that have managed to get to playable state have taken insanely long time for me to complete - my one and only WAB army required more than two years before reaching playable state, while a little more than 20 6mm battalions intended for General de Brigade lingered on my painting table for... oh, let me see if I remember... six years?

These days I am rather painfully aware of the fact that my desire for starting new project is far greater than my ability to actually achieve tangible results. So when I decided to scratch my itch for company level WWII gaming (new version of 'I Ain't Been Shot, Mom' broke my resistance), I decided to take somewhat different approach than in my previous projects and try to stick to the KISS principle. You know, KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

First of all, the scale. Yes, you guessed it - 6mm. Not only will it be quick and simple to build up necessary forces in this scale, but the fact that I already have a bunch of GHQ blisters made this choice rather practical. My first test base looks rather nifty, if I may say so myself.

Second, the terrain. Here I was in a bit of a quandary, because my ultimate goal is to use IABSM3 together with those excellent scenario booklets that Too Fat Lardies also provide. The thing is that those booklets have maps and they are historical. Why is it a problem, you ask? Well, here's where my obsessive compulsiveness raises its ugly head - if a scenario has a historical map, I just must depict it as precisely as possible on the wargaming table. Sorry, can't help it, it's just one of those things.

Fortunately, I do believe that I found a solution for my "problem" - I'll make terrain boards specifically for individual scenarios. This may seem counterintuitive, but it's not... if I keep things simple. Every board will be 80 x 60 centimeter, built from cheap kind of styrofoam and "flocked" with sand and latex wall paint. Test board in the picture took me three hours to make and the cost was about 85SEK (around $12).

Next, the buildings. Simplest possible solution here - home-made stuff made from the cardboard boxes that frozen TV dinners are packed in. Sure, they won't look as nice or durable as those resin buildings from Timecast Models, but they are cheap, take the paint very well and most important of all, they are  easy to make.

Finally, the vegetation. Trees aren't much of a problem, since I already have a bunch of them. The main "obstacle" on my way to be able to play my first scenario is the boccage, which is featured prominently in the scenario pack that I will be using. I still haven't decided how to proceed here, but I toy with the idea of using paper mache and Woodland Scenics foliage.

Return of Derfel's Wolftails

As already mentioned (on several occasions), my main inspiration for starting Romano-British WAB army was "Winter King" trilogy by Bernard Cornwell. It would therefore be rather strange if I didn't have Derfel's Wolftails among my units. However, the heroic status of Derfel's warriors in the book didn't matter much on wargaming table - H. demonstrated that fact to me in rather painful manner by wiping them out to the last man in their first and so far their last battle.

I could of course have blamed the disaster that befell Derfel's warriors on the fact that they were brand new. After all, it is widely known fact that newly painted units always get their butt kicked. But the real reason for their untimely demise was rather more prosaic - a unit of twelve figures has no staying power in WAB. Naturally, the solution to the problem was to paint more miniatures. Well, it took me a while, but after finding some time during last weekend I was finally done with my "recruiting" efforts. Now, the new and improved Derfel's Wolftails can finally be presented to the public. I must admit that I am rather pleased with the end result. I still suck at painting realistically looking spears and as it turns out it is physically impossible for me to draw a decent looking five-pointed star. But the fact remains that this could very well be my best painting work so far.

Rebel Yell

Rebel yell – the stuff of legends. But how did it really sound? Well, this little Youtube gem is probably the closest to the real thing that we will ever hear before figuring out how to travel in time.

Listen to the rendition at the end of this clip. Now imagine being in the middle of nowhere, sun is just rising, the surroundings are covered in light morning mist. You’re frozen and stiff after sleeping yet another night on the ground, cursing your lot while longing for the first sip of that awful, but hot coffee.  Suddenly the morning silence is shattered by a cacophony of this sound mixed with smatter of musket and artillery fire. Don’t know about you, but I’d strongly consider reallocating myself to somewhere else, somewhere very far away from this bloodcurdling sound. :-)

Back To ACW

Last Sunday, L. and I had time to run another ACW scenario from Partizan Press's scenario book "Heartland". The scenario in question, fancifully titled "Assault on Fort Donelson", depicts the assault of Federal troops on defenses in front of the fort. This attack was the offensive response of General Grant to the breakout attempt of Confederate troops, which was the topic of previous ACW scenario covered in this blog.

I don’t like that (also known as house rules)

By now I have a pretty good understanding of game mechanics in TCHAE and what I like/dislike in the ruleset. With that in mind, I decided that it was a good opportunity to start tweaking the rules to my taste. Here are the changes that I decided to apply for this game:

• In original rules player can automatically stop troops that reached rout state by spending necessary amount of pips. I never cared for this ability to immediately restore control over broken troops, mainly because morale degradation process in TCHAE takes place gradually and there is plenty of time for the player to rectify the situation before a unit reaches the breaking point. Therefore I decided that a unit is allowed to reach rout status must perform rout movement at least once before the commander can make an attempt to rally it.
• I also wanted to introduce the element of uncertainty into rallying process. I was never a big fan of guaranteed restoration order among broken troops, simply because there is no such thing. Just ask general Rosecrans what he thinks about the issue. :-) In this case, the solution was simple - before a unit rallies, it must pass the morale check. If it fails, you have just spent a pip and it's still running away.
• Rule about units suffering 50 percent casualties becoming permanently defeated made me wrinkle my nose already during my first reading of the rules. It's a simple and clean enough, but I always have a negative reaction to rules that that provide guaranteed "soft kills". In this case, I decided to add a condition to the original rule - unit that suffered casualties above 50 percent and became disrupted as a result of those casualties would have to take a morale check before being able to improve its morale state. If the check failed, only then would such unit become permanently defeated.
• Major overhaul of movement and firing ranges was the final change of the ruleset. In my previous games I always halved all the ranges and came to the conclusion movement rates were too short, which in turn made the game much slower than it should be.  So I've made a major overhaul of all ranges, reducing the original values by either 33 or 25 percent. Don't worry, the relation between unit zone of control and small arms ranges is still intact.
  
  Command range of officers is  the only range value that I decided to keep at 50 percent of the original value. Experience of previous games showed that it was appropriate, considering small size of my figure bases.
  

Preparations, and initial setup.

”Assault on Fort Donelson”  is very manageable for two players - less than ten regiments organized in two brigades and some artillery are fielded by both sides.

The twist is provided by the fact that only the weaker of Confederate brigades is deployed on the table at the start of the game. Regiments of the other brigade enter the battlefield individually on a roll of a six on D6 at the start of every turn. This aspect of the scenario created a bit of a problem, since command and control of units in TCHAE is more or less hard-wired to brigades. In the end we decided that regiments that show up in same turn would operate under shared blind and receive same orders, but that every blind could operate individually. Once deployed on the table, regiments would have to follow brigade orders. I'm sure that we played it "fast and loose" once the game picked up the pace, but since neither of us has a habit of bickering about minute details, things worked out just fine in the end.

While the Northern side has initial advantage of numbers, the terrain in this scenario is certainly a great equalizer for the Southerners. Not only are the Confederate regiments enjoying the protection of earthworks, the earthworks themselves are protected by an abatis covering entire front with the exception of the roads. This terrain feature presented me with another issue related to the ruleset - abatis is simply not covered by TCHAE. Another house rule was tried out for size - upon reaching an abatis, all troop types and formations had to stop in front of it, passing through it took one pip. Finally, upon passing through an abatis all formations except skirmishers would become disordered.

The game

The assault started badly of the blue-clad boys - for some reason the assault didn't start at predetermined time, but the activities in front of his positions alarmed Confederate CinC  Buckner about the imminent assault. He took opportunity of the delay and placed all his available forces (1/30th Tennesse, 2/30th Tennesse, 49th Tennesse and 50th Tennesse)  in the fieldworks, ready to meet the onslaught.

Are you attacking or what?

In game terms, the Confederate Blinds card followed by Tea Break card in two consecutive rounds, effectively denying any advance by the Union side. L. had plenty of time to place his troops in the fieldworks, while my troops were more interested in drinking their coffee than attacking Confederate positions.

By the time Union assault force reached the abatis, the rebels were all set and ready for them. As soon as Union regiments in first line (I advanced each brigade in two lines, two regiments abreast) forced their way through abatis, they were met with salvo after salvo of small arms fire, causing them to stop in their tracks.

Reaching the abatis

Colonel Lauman's brigade on the left of Union line was hit hard, with both 2nd Iowa and 25th Indiana suffered severe losses as a result. On the right flank, Union line overlapped their opponent's flank, thus rebel fire wasn't as punishing. But regardless of lesser opposition, advance of federal troops under command of Colonel Cook also stalled as soon as his front regiments pushed past the abatis.

To add insult to injury, both the cards and the dice continued to refuse to cooperate with the me. Over next couple of rounds, coffee cards made almost immediate appearance, thus giving the rebels a chance to pour even more musket fire into disorganized Union line. At the same time, L. developed an uncanny ability to roll sixes (that's a man who claims that he always has bad luck with dice), with the result of three additional Rebel regiments making appearance on the battlefield and marching quickly to the sound of guns. The only consolation for me at that moment was in the fact that my regiments somehow gave as well as they took - casualties mounted rapidly on both sides and I could absorb them better than L.

General Smith takes personal command

The stalemate was finally broken by Union CinC, General C.E. Smith. Having read about the performance of this officer before his passing shortly after this battle, I decided to give him Inspirational attribute. This decision did pay dividend when Union Inspirational card turned up at an opportune moment - acting on rather desperate impulse, I let Smith take direct control of 7th Illinois and lead it forward in a bold advance that carried it past the rebel fieldworks. This action seemed to have had desired effect and mobilized other Union regiments into action. Cook's three remaining regiments, apparently awed by the brave act of their CinC, finally managed to scramble over the earthworks. At the same time, Lauman finally remembered that he was a brigade commander and ordered by now severely depleted 2dn Iowa to outflank confederate position to its front. 14th Indiana and Minnesota sharpshooters were ordered to follow in its wake and support it to the best of their ability.

View from confederate side

General Buckner observes advance of enemy troops

Rebel troops manning the earthworks were now threatened with very real possibility of being outflanked on both sides, a threat that L. was very well aware of. There wasn't much he could do about the Union troops pouring through unmanned fieldworks on his right, but on the left he had three regiments not yet engaged in the fight and by God, he would use them now. An order for an all out assault toward the works  was issued at the very moment Cooks blue-clad troops scrambled over them and started to form up on the other side. The result was a massive melee in which most of the Union regiments grudgingly gave up ground and were pushed back to the other side of the fieldworks. Only 7th Illinois stood their ground. Now however, they were in a very precarious position, effectively isolated from the rest of their brigade.

High watermark of the battle

As it turned out, their resilience proved to be deciding factor as the events developed to Union advantage on the other flank and in the center. At the same time as the massive melee between Cook's and Brown's brigade took place, the battered 25th Indiana which got stuck in front of rebel fortifications as soon as it got through the abatis, finally gave up and stepped back in confusion. In a way, it was good news, because their retreat finally gave room for maneuver for 7th Iowa, the best regiment in Union OOB. They swiftly moved forward, did not waste time on reforming after passing the abatis and threw themselves against 2/30th Tennessee, which was already significantly weakened while trading blows with 25th Indiana. A sudden blow by fresh opponent threw the rebels back, right against the flank 7th Illinois. Seeing Union troops both in front and behind them, the rebels promptly threw down their weapons and surrendered.

7th Iowa taking the field works and breaking rebel line

Confederate right flank at the end of engagement

Simultaneously, rest of Lauman's brigade found its way past 1/30th Tennessee on extreme confederate right flank and broke it.
With federal troops poised to roll up his right flank, a gap in the center of his line and no reserves to commit to either of those points, L. decided that the situation was irrecoverable and gave orders for general retreat. Happy with taking the works and somewhat dismayed by the problems I run into while taking them, I did not contest Confederate withdrawal.

Musings after the battle

I must say that this game was one of most enjoyable events in my wargaming "career". Not only did the scenario play out in what I would like to call historical manner, but on at least two occasions we had the fortune to experience what a friend of mine calls "cinematic effects". Smith's bold rush with single regiment, followed by huge melee and decisive advance of 7th Iowa breaking the back of confederate resistance will be remembered by both L. and me for some time to come.

I was however somewhat disappointed by the fact that I didn't get the opportunity to see the effects of my rule tweaks. Overall, the game had all the characteristics of ACW - slow, brutal grinding down of firing lines, punctured by rushes and counter-rushes in small sections of the line. However, neither line suffered overly from routs (1/30th Tennessee on confederate right did rout, but that event had no real impact on the game), nor did any of the regiments suffer more than 50 percent casualties. So I'm still ignorant about true impact of the house rules I'm experimenting with.

In our discussion after the game, L. claimed that if 2nd Kentucky, his best regiment, had managed to get to the battlefield in time, events would develop very differently. I on the other side, made a counter-claim that if the Union advance started on time... events would look rather differently. In other words, there is a pretty good chance that I will run this scenario again.

Finally, a couple of words about TCHAE. I am more convinced with every game that it's a ruleset that works best with two to four players per side. This assessment is based on the fact that the game is card-driven, which makes it rather difficult for more two players to be "active" at the same time. Regardless of that minor critique, I think it's an excellent set of rules - once all the players are familiar with the game mechanics, the gameplay flows smoothly and quickly and the game itself is really a lot of fun. In the end, that's all we can ask. :-)

Day before a game

Well, it must be said – it takes a lot of work before you can do something useful with it and it’s a true pain to set up. But if you put in the effort, GHQ Terrain System does work really well.

I’ve spent better half of the morning putting together the terrain for tomorrow’s ACW scenario. Final result can be seen below and I admit that I am pretty pleased with myself at this moment.