A second 2nd Hukou

We first visited that immense yet ignored conflict, the Taiping Rebellion, back in February when we fought the Second Battle of Hukou (report here). In the intervening time, our scholarly friend and scenario author Jeremy has revised it on the basis of our first playtest (plus one of his own), so we tried it again: a second Second Hukou, you might say.

In our first game, the Taipings' assault had foundered somewhat on unduly fearsome imperial artillery redoubts. The revised version reduced the amount of artillery. This time the Taipings (commanded by Dave T and Mark) swept over the Qing stockades rather more easily, but still not without some serious tussles. The really interesting part came after the line was breached, as the Qing scrambled to evacuate part of their army while still covering objectives in the depth of their position. 

Some pictures, with some commentary, and then some reflections.

February's battlefield was a bit bleak - no trees or houses. For this game, Bob built some of the 6mm Oriental Village pack from Paper Terrain. Cute!

View from behind the Taipings as they form up to assault the Qing defences. All the Qing start with yellow counters for Disruption (or Low Ammo for the cannon). Most of the Qing infantry are Raw. The ones in yellow uniforms are Trained but Fragile. All the Taipings are Aggressive; those in light blue are Veterans armed with decent muskets, so are the only infantry not to be penalised with Ragged Volleys.

Big white counters are objectives: the three fortified stockades; the junction at Sanli (top centre); the escape route levee across the lake (top left - an addition since playtest #1); and the town of Hukou (out of shot top right). The wooded ridge is mostly impassable and separates the main battlefield from the road to Hukou along the Yangtze (upper right).

Trained (but Fragile) yellowcoat Qing regulars in the front line; raw Hunan militia mostly in the second line; cavalry backing them up.

Battle is joined. The easternmost stockade (foreground) is outflanked by Lindley's "picked men" and swiftly overrun, but the other redoubts prove more ... redoubtable.

The Qing respond. All Bob's cavalry do is rally and trot forward a bit. (He actually forgot to do it on Turn 1, would you believe, but we gave him a Mulligan. "You had one job ..."!) My infantry launch a couple of countercharges to no great effect. One of my damaged units has fallen back and formed column (the yellow "T" left foreground) to head for the boats in Hukou.

View from behind the Taiping line. Taipings press forward. The Qing line bends a bit but hasn't yet snapped. 

Now the cavalry arrive! And my yellowcoats join in, enveloping a whitecoat Taiping unit. But although the Qing numbers look impressive, the superior quality of the highly motivated Taiping fanatics meant none of our charges did any real damage except to ourselves. A little unlucky.

Meanwhile, Taiping cavalry (left foreground) was sneaking up along the Yangtze towards Hukou. Fortunately a substantial and adequately garrisoned fort bars their way. However, Taiping guns will be along soon to pummel it. In Hukou itself, one infantry unit supports the artillery defending the town; a second (the "T" from three pics previous) queues at the quayside to embark; a third (bottom right) has already taken to the boats and quit the battle. If we can get three units off, we earn an objective - not as straightforward as it sounds, as denuding Hukou risks losing the town objective. The big green D12 is the turn clock: it's Turn 5 of 10.

Now the Qing have been forced out of all their fortified line (the red troops left edge were in the westernmost stockade). Undaunted, a brave Qing brigade retakes the central stockade! In the distance top left, another yellow brigade has fallen back and formed column, hoping to move through Sanli (right of top edge) to Hukou.

My gallant counterattackers. They won't last long. However, we do manage a couple of bloody exchanges elsewhere on the battlefield, where Qing and Taiping units mutually destruct entirely. That's probably a good trade-off for the Qing, whose troops are worse, whereas the Taipings need as many units as possible to advance and take as many objectives as possible.

Beginning of the end. The Qing army is disintegrating now. Taiping veterans have seized Sanli (left) and the Taipings are wiping out Qing units at an increasing rate. Those Spent Qing troops (blue counter) bottom right won't be able to hold the levee exit objective against onrushing Taipings (out of shot to the right).

All was not lost, though - Bob mustered two cavalry brigades and retook Sanli. Although it would fall again shortly, this would protect Hukou from a possible attack from the rear. As Mark's cavalry assault on my fort was rebuffed, Hukou stayed secure. That plus the units we evacuated was enough to earn a draw.

"To the boats, men!" I can see Bob needs to acquire some junks for next time ...

Reflections

The Rules As Written. Jeremy had introduced new weapon types to reflect the idiosyncracies of cumbersome and inefficient Chinese artillery and assorted infantry armament. For this second playtest, we threw those out and just applied a blanket "Ragged Volleys" attribute (R) - a left shift on the firing table - per the standard rulebook. Mathematically this works out much the same. It showed that BBB as written is flexible enough to cover idiosyncratic troops and doesn't usually need any new rule.

Phase II Was the Fun Bit. As I've noted before, there is limited entertainment to be had from "smash-mouth" frontal assaults on fortified lines. But here, the initial assault was both necessary and interesting, as the speed and manner in which the Taipings breached the Qing line then shaped the ensuing Phase II. As the defenders, Bob and I were having to make decisions about whether and when to counterattack and shore up the line or fall back and cover the various objectives beyond. The attackers similarly had to decide which units should exploit in which direction. It worked well as a scenario situation.

Divided Command. Mark and Dave had a sensible division of command: Dave took the Taiping left wing, Mark the right. For the hell of it, Bob and I did it differently: I commanded the infantry while he had the cavalry and artillery. This produced amusing results as we regularly failed to coordinate, but it kind of felt right for an army run by mandarin bureaucracy.

Replay Value. Our two playtests produced quite different games. Of course this was partly due to scenario revision, but also due to the Taipings following different plans. Both sides have some options, particularly concerning the sideshow route along the Yangtze, so as and when we do it again (a "Third Second Hukou"|?), I can imagine it going differently again. That's the richness of complete-battle scenarios at this scale.

More, Please! This game did have a distinctive Chinese flavour. Jeremy has produced a second scenario and is working on a third, so hopefully we will get more Taiping action on the table soon. Looking forward to it!