Rule #1: read the victory conditions!

 

Luke asked for a Franco-Prussian War game, so we wheeled out one of my favourites: Beaumont.

This is a fighting withdrawal, a situation that always makes for a free-wheeling fast and furious game. In our last go at it, I got thoroughly well beaten (report here). It went differently this time. I'll let the pics tell the story. Some reflections at the end.

French chasseurs á cheval detect the approaching Germans. 6mm Baccus figures, nicely painted for me by Reinforcements by Post (a firm that used to operate from Bangladesh and whose painters maybe weren't totally up on European flags).

And there's a lot of Germans - three and a half corps totalling >100,000 men. Each base is 1,500 men or 36 guns in this scenario. Units are large brigades.

Luke and Ben took command of the Germans, so Mark and I were the French.

The French have two widely separated corps falling back on a third behind the River Meuse. Here we have a German-eye view of Douay's French 7th Corps, which starts in the SW corner and has to cross the whole table to escape to the NE. Note how I have deployed those two brigades of its 3rd Division already facing north for their getaway. This will prove to be an error.

In the SE corner, again looking from the German side, Mark has deployed Failly's 5th Corps with a brigade as rear guard in Beaumont itself (the town in the right foreground), another covering its eastern flank against the Saxons' arrival, and three astride the road behind Beaumont ready to race for the bridge along with most of his artillery. Just visible in the top right corner is part of 12th Corps lining the Meuse to receive our fugitives.

I told Mark the victory conditions said we needed to get 5 infantry units and 3 artillery units across the Meuse.

Plan view of the battlefield to show just how far my lads top left have to go to escape, and all the steep hills and woods in the way. Fortunately it's only a 5'x4' table rather than the usual 6-footer.  At least Mark's troops lower left have a road to help them. On the other hand, they will have to contend with the bulk of the German onslaught.

Battle is joined. This is my corner at the end of Turn 1. Remember those two brigades I deployed carelessly facing north? The should have been facing east, because that's where the Bavarians at the top of this pic came from. They piled onto my flank, wiped out both brigades, and exploited into the village of Oches. Now they're in a firefight with what has become my rearguard brigade (1st Bde, 2nd Div, 7th Cps) just south of La Berlière. I've sent the corps cavalry round to bother the Bavarians' flank (top left).

Meanwhile, over to my left, more Bavarians are pouring through the gap between our two corps (top right), while a whole German corps takes on the gallant brigade in Beaumont. Mark's retreating brigades aren't forming column and retreating quite as fast as he'd like.

At least Mark's guns are getting away and about to cross the Meuse and shelter behind 12th Corps's chassepots. (Those artillery are all currently being towed, it's just that some cheapskate couldn't bring himself to pay for a load of limbers. I kinda regret that.)

At La Berlière, my rear guard holds firm. A Bavarian charge has failed, leaving one Bavarian brigade spent. Another German division arrives to reinforce the Bavarians.

Mark's rear guard likewise holds on in Beaumont and causes casualties. The black smoke top centre marks a German brigade as Spent, which explains the brown smoke showing the French are now low on ammo.

The Germans therefore commit the newly arrived Saxons to assault Beaumont from the east (left of pic). This assault is repelled by mitrailleuses on the hill (out of pic lower left). The Bavarians moving through the gap are struggling forward slowly, harassed by fire from some of my guns (out of pic to the right) as well as Mark's retreating infantry (out of pic below centre).

The Germans became 'target fixated' on my defence of La Berlière. There are now three German divisions queueing up to get in, when they might be doing better to work at least some of them past the rear guard's flank to cut off others' retreat. Even the German cavalry (top centre) that surely ought to be chasing retreaters is heading over this way to join the fun.

Similar story around Beaumont, where Mark's solitary brigade continues to detain five times its number (thanks to it fending off a huge assault with an improbable 6:1 die roll). Some Germans are at last filtering past behind it.

While all those Germans are busy at La Berlière, Douay supervises an entire division marching serenely undisturbed towards safety.

Germans are now swarming past Beaumont towards the bridges. Nevertheless, Mark's one beleaguered brigade still holds out. It must be Brigadier Asterix ...

Turn 8 out of 10. The Germans have finally disposed of both rear guards and are chasing across open country. It was around this point I realised I had made a slight booboo. I had to admit to Mark that the numbers I had told him were those we needed to achieve a draw. To win, we actually still needed to get two of Douay's brigades and another artillery unit across the Meuse. With Germans now approaching the bridges and setting up guns to command them, this was going to be tricky!

I did manage to march the infantry off. It looked as though our guns would be the problem.

Douay's artillery was theoretically close enough to escape, but getting guns through woods can be a struggle. Happily, my dice were kind and they made it.

However, as insurance, Mark had actually been obliged to have a brigade of 12th Cps advance across the Meuse so that his batteries could get away. They did so - but the infantry, pinned down by fire, could not! Consequently, we had extracted enough for a draw but were a unit short of what we needed for victory. Oh la vache!

Out of breath but exultant: panting Germans survey the fleeing French from the heights above the Meuse.

Reflections

Target Fixation. In the previous game, the Germans focused on pouring troops through the gap between the French corps, so they managed to interfere enough with the French retreat to earn a victory. This time, they devoted so much effort to wiping out the two rearguard brigades that the rest were able to get away relatively unmolested. This 'target fixation', the need to kill what's immediately in front of us rather than seeing the bigger picture, is a common syndrome among wargamers (and, indeed, in real life commanders).

Read the Victory Conditions! That's a stricture that always applies - that primary principle of war, 'maintain the aim' - and one that both sides neglected in this game. The Germans did so through their target fixation; we French did so through my careless reading at the start, so that I had to hastily correct near the end of the game. Had I not made that error, we could probably have organised our artillery's retreat better and ensured we got enough away to win.

Variables and Replay Value. These historical scenarios seem to have endless replay value. We can roll the same ones out again and again and they are still fresh and fun. That is because there are enough variables for them to be interestingly different each time. Some of those variables are due to the scenario structure, especially the fact that with BBB we can make the time and space large enough to not only provide room for manoeuvre but also provide options for both sides. The other major variable, though, is the players. Different players will approach a tactical challenge in different ways; even the same player will come up with different plans depending on whether they are feeling tired or aggressive or how they judge their opponent on the day ... so I am sure I will fight Beaumont again and I am sure it will be fun and different again.

Variables and Scenario Balance. We playtest BBB scenarios several times before sharing them with the world. The aim is of course to pitch the victory conditions so that both sides have a reasonable chance of victory, with a good chance of a draw as the 'par score'. A wise man (Mark J) once said to me scenario balance isn't that important, so long as the scenario produces a good game. Furthermore, I have come to realise that the margin of error, the engineering tolerance, in my scenario design is probably rather smaller than the variation in players' plans. In other words, players' tactical mistakes are likely to have a bigger impact on the result than any small skewing in the scenario balance.

Beaumont is one of the nine Franco-Prussian War scenarios in the BBB rulebook. These can be played as an episodic campaign in which the result of one battle affects the set-up for the next. There are another eight scenarios freely available in the BBB io group files.

Making Dave's Gettysburg dream come true

I did a good deed last week.

Back in the previous millennium, for a few years I had a great bunch of regular gaming buddies who met at my mate Dave O.'s house. Then I moved away and we lost touch. Earlier this year, I caught up with Dave and visited him for the first time in decades. We had a fine time and made a dent in his whisky cabinet. I also learned about his passion for the American Civil War. This had grown from the few regiments of unpainted plastics I remembered us gaming with back in the day. It extended to him being a serious reenactor for many years (for both sides), in the course of which he got to meet President Clinton. He now has a beautiful collection of 6mm ACW armies, his war room is decorated with ACW prints and paintings, and he is hugely knowledgeable about the war. We watched the Gettysburg movie and Dave confided in me that his dream was to wargame the whole of Gettysburg, something he'd never done.

Well, I thought: how could we do that, I wonder? Is there a ruleset that makes such a thing feasible? How could two of us possibly fight all three days on a 6'x4' table on a Saturday evening and still find time for a whisky-fuelled chinwag and a takeaway? Aha! I thought: yes, there is a way. (Regular readers of this blog will have guessed the answer.)

Hence I conspired to arrange another trip up his way, checked with Dave as to when he had a free weekend, we set a date, the day arrived and so did I. We set the table up for the classic BBB scenario that has been enjoyed by so many over the years. Dave was new to BBB so a short intro was required, but the rules are easy to pick up so he was quickly into the swing.

The famous landscape. Gettysburg upper right, showing what an important junction it was with roads fanning out in nine directions, not to mention a railroad. Seminary Ridge above it. The gates on Cemetery Hill centre of pic, with Cemetery Ridge to its left, the woods on Culp's Hill to its right, Benner's Hill by the right edge. Top left is the Peach Orchard, below it the Wheatfield, and the Round Tops just out of shot to the left of that.

All the terrain is Dave's. The discreetly gridded battlemat helped a lot with the set-up. The MDF road and stream sections are handy. Buildings by Timecast, I believe.

Here are brief summaries of each day's action, followed by a few annotated photos for each. Then some Reflections at the end.

On Day 1, everything went right for Dave's Confederates. Ewell's boys not only swarmed into Gettysburg, sending the Iron Brigade reeling back onto Culp's Hill - they then stormed onto Cemetery Hill as well. To compound my woes, Buford got enveloped and wiped out by Heth and Pender.

Turn 1. Confederate assault against Wadworth and Doubleday is a smashing success and they exploit into Gettysburg itself. Out of shot top of pic is Heth's division. Initially this headed across towards Cemetery Ridge. That made me divert troops to the ridge, which meant they weren't defending Cemetery Hill when the Rebs came swarming through.

6mm figures from Dave's collection. Not sure what make. The big unit bases worked fine and in some ways better than the multiple small 1" bases recommended in the rulebook. The dice are strength counters and we used different colours to identify troop quality. Formation is the other thing to keep track of. The default formation was Line. The two Confederate units in the foreground in this pic are both In Depth, indicated by the bits of MDF behind them. We used bigger pieces to indicate Column of March. The white puffs are Disrupted markers. (Ignore the unit labels, they're left over from one of Dave's previous games with a different ruleset.)

Turn 2. My Union boys have been expelled from Gettysburg and withdrawn to defend Cemetery Hill (left foreground). Top left, the seminary has advanced off its ridge to make way for Heth's division (with the green die) to wheel onto Buford's flank. Buford's movement dice failed me three times, he just stood there and died.

Day 3 - the Confederates have taken Cemetery Hill! Which will prove very inconvenient.

Of course, the Union gets lots of reinforcements overnight for Day 2. Unfortunately, having Rebs on Cemetery Hill messed up my redeployment. Instead of stiffening my defensive line on a nice fishhook, I found myself trying to establish a gun line inside the fishhook so I could clear the enemy off Cemetery Hill. Meanwhile, Bobby Lee had set up a mighty gun line of his own commanding Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill from the north. I detached a division to try to roll that up, but when the Rebs took Culp's Hill as well, I had to call it back to try and retake that. 

Among the Confederate reinforcements for Day 2 are two of Longstreet's divisions. Dave chose to commit these against my left, where I had three divisions: one on Little Round Top (bottom left) overlooking the rocks of Devil's Den; one in the Peach Orchard (top centre); and one more supporting it (right centre).

The scenario stipulates that there is one variable Objective. It may be either the Peach Orchard, Gettysburg itself, or Benner's Hill. That gets determined at the start of Day 2, after both sides have set up their reinforcements. In this game it turned out to be the town of Gettysburg. (Not that it mattered which - at game end Dave held all three!)

More Confederate reinforcements had arrived around Gettysburg, enabling Dave to start trying to push me off Culp's Hill (upper right), where my best unit (Wadsworth's and Doubleday's divs, including the Iron Brigade) is now Spent (blue puff). Meanwhile, I have lots of troops but not enough space to deploy them effectively.

View from my right flank. That potent Confederate gun line top right has been battering the Iron Brigade. I've detached one of Sykes's division to go and bother it (left foreground).

Close-up of Dave's lovely brushwork.

View from behind the Confederate gun line. The Rebs have now wiped out the Iron Brigade and taken Culp's Hill, so Sykes has had to wheel back to deal with that. (Or maybe I should have let him press on?)

Some good news for the Union: Longstreet's repeated assaults on the Peach Orchard have achieved nothing beyond costing him thousands of casualties. (Both those strength dice started at 6; each of those four lost points represents 1,500 men.)

Day 2 had ended with the Confederates controlling both those vital hills, as well as Gettysburg. That would be enough for victory, so I had to counterattack. In my favour, they had suffered heavy losses in their attacks, and I was holding off Longstreet at the Peach Orchard.

The bad news for Day 3 was that, having lost Buford on Day 1, the dice decreed I also lost the off-table cavalry battle in East Field. That meant JEB Stuart's Confederate cavalry showed up on my right flank, instead of Kilpatrick's US cavalry on my left. Oh dear.

Consequently, while I did expel tired rebels from Cemetery Hill and Culp's as well, the cavalry helped a final Confederate attack to hurl us off again. At the other end of the pitch, Longstreet had finally cracked the Peach Orchard and was bumping up against Little Round Top.

Turn 9 (start of Day 3). How could I kick the Rebs off those two hills? You can see a gap in the middle where I want to set up a gun line, while my infantry is poised to attack Cemetery Hill from the left and Culp's Hill from the right. It's a plan of sorts, and both hills will indeed be retaken.

One spanner in the works is JEB Stuart's cavalry arriving behind Sykes. That fight will end with my division Spent and falling back behind its friends. The victorious cavalry will then cover the flank of Culp's Hill.

And now my left is starting to give way as well. Longstreet has been reinforced by Pickett, and Pickett's Charge has taken the Peach Orchard. One of Longstreet's divisions stalls at the foot of Little Round Top, but another has turned to menace my guns on Cemetery Ridge.

On the penultimate Turn 10, I retook Cemetery Hill. On my final Turn 11, I retook Culp's as well. That left Dave holding only one Objective (Gettysburg), which would have made it a draw.

However, on the last Confederate turn of the game, Dave's final assault kicked me off Cemetery Hill again. Victory for the Confederacy! And a classic BBB finish with the result swinging to and fro right to the end.

The battle was over and no doubt Meade's tenure in command as well. The rebels held the field; the Union army had to withdraw towards Washington and regroup (again).

Reflections

The Big Picture. Playing all three days in a single session and at this scale really lets you see the action in context. That first day was pivotal - it really shaped the rest of the battle. Playing it more conventionally as is so often done - as a bigger, longer game, or fighting it in sections, worrying about individual regiments - would create the "wood for the trees" problem and would make it much harder to see the big picture. Several times, after playing this scenario, I've had players tell me "now I get it - now I understand the battle!".

Big Plans. Dave had a definite plan. Of course, he then had to adapt it once it collided with my actions and the dice. Still, at the high level - where he committed his reserves, where he directed his attacks, and what that meant for the force-time-space equation - it worked and earned him his victory. On my side, by contrast, I was always on the back foot. My actions were mainly reactive, desperately responding to whatever Dave did, rather than having a positive plan of my own.

Cramping Deployment. That Confederate success on Day 1 really was important, as I didn't have space to use my numerical advantage effectively. I struggled to find space to set up a gun line; when I did, I then managed to mask it with my infantry. Some of this was my own ineptitude but it was also due to the situation Dave's success had created.

Unit Bases. The big single bases for units worked very nicely. People do occasionally ask about this, so in future I can point them to this report.

More Good Deeds to Come. It was a splendid day (including the post-battle phase that went on until about 3am). We were two happy wargamers. Dave loved the game. He wants to play Gettysburg again! But maybe we can try a different ACW battle next time. And there will definitely be a next time.

The BBB Gettysburg scenario is freely available from the files of the BBB io group (you do have to join the group to get access),

Moby Dick whale hunt

OWS was honored (US spelling is deliberate) by some special visitors this month: my good American friends Tom Ballou and Sean Barnett.

Tom had been wanting for a while to put on a game at a UK show. This year he finally got around to contacting major UK shows such as Salute, Partizan and Colours, but without much luck until four weeks before the event, the Colours organizers got back to confirm they had a table for him. Little did Tom know, this was the one all our OWS team had had to cancel because of real life getting in the way! Clouds and silver linings ...

Anyway, the trip went ahead and, at quite short notice, Tom and Sean flew over to England. As they were going to be in the area, Tom offered to run his Colours game for us at OWS as well. Yes please!

Now, the game in question wasn't exactly a wargame, certainly not a Bloody Big Battle - but there was plenty of blood, and they don't come much bigger than the main protagonist: Moby Dick! Yes, this was a whale-hunting game in which the infamous cetacean was a dice-driven NPC, while each of us players commanded a whaleboat trying to turn him into lamp-oil and dollars. Readers with qualms about the ethics of a game like this may want to look away now.

This was my boat with its green gunwales. Each crew consisted of a harpoonist, four oarsmen and a steersman.

The mighty whale, covered with harpoons and lines trapping an unlucky seaman. Note the attendant sharks frolicking nearby and looking forward to eating the scraps.

The first three boats get into harpoon range. The disc top right has two sides, "Happy Whale" or "Angry Whale", which affects how fast he moves.

MD starts happy. Guess what harpooning him does.

MD surges angrily forward. The boats that harpooned him find themselves dragged along behind on the 'Nantucket Sleigh Ride'. The red counters indicate how much blood is in the water to attract sharks ...

... which could be bad news for sailors who go overboard, like the ones bobbing in the water here.

Meanwhile, MD is about to charge off the edge of the board. A clever game mechanic says at that point he dives out of the game. The boats then circle nervously, wondering where he will breach again. Hovering seabirds provide a clue. Dave T had had no luck all game, I don't think he'd yet hurled a harpoon, so he was hoping MD would show up close -

- but not that close! Turns out MD's favourite flavor is orange. Could Dave pass the necessary skill rolls to avoid MD's immense maw?

Nooooo! The whaleboat is crushed and its crew devoured.

MD is now Happy Whale.

Ishmael floats on Queequeg's coffin on a very uninviting cold grey sea. (This will mean more to you who have read the book or seen the movie than it did to me.)

With the exception of unlucky Dave, we were actually very fortunate and finally managed to slay the fearsome beast. This was partly because his random movement dice failed to make him dive, partly because Nick O made some monstrous damage rolls.

Regardless of the outcome, it was a tremendously entertaining ride along the way. Apart from the game mechanics, the fun was enhanced considerably by our GM, Tom, in his Captain Ahab hat, adding atmosphere with anecdotes and excerpts from the book, and expatiating knowledgeably about 19th-century whaling.

Apparently the game was created by another gentleman whose name I don't know but would love to credit, and who ran it for years at conventions. Tom played it, loved it, and with its creator's permission codified it and now presents it himself. All the models are Tom's work (can't tell you the manufacturers, sorry). We had a splendid time and I can definitely award Tom the HQGE.