We are a group of mostly venerable fellows (average age lowering with each new recruit) who play wargames with toy soldiers. We play in an apartment overlooking Corlears Hook, a geographic feature of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We play all periods from Ancient up through WWII but greatly prefer the period of black powder, powdered wigs, etc. Please click on any pictures to enlarge them.
Monday, November 30, 2020
Book Review: The British Are Coming
Friday, September 11, 2020
Eutaw Springs 1781 III, Loose Files
One more time… this is the last
Eutaw Springs game and the last Loose Files game for this year. The game ended
in a complete surprise to me but I much prefer this version of the rules. I
used Andy Callan’s “Paperboys Peninsular War Rules” to determine who fights in
combat and how multiple unit combats are divided up. I junked the vague reference
to orders a while back. Last, I tried the card activation method from the
Paperboys rules. Each side has three cards in the deck, 3 red (for the British)
and 3 black for the Yanks. Your first card is when you fire, the second card is
when your cavalry moves, the third card is when your infantry and artillery move.
Leaders can move on any card. Combat is resolved at the end of each movement phase.
Retreats and routs are done immediately
after combat. After all cards are done, both sides rally. It works well. I suggest yellow markers to show a unit can't move for a turn and red for routs.
Lee’s Legion will fall back, about face and move back a little. If you pull troops out of the line to reorganize, take them all the way out. Taught myself a lesson. Pickens and Malmedy both were disorganized by musket fire and decide to fall back through the regulars.
The Maryland Continentals moved forward to cover the militia and were met by a blast of fire. They about-faced and started to move off. The British wanted to charge but could not fire and move in the same turn.
But on the next turn the British infantry move card came up first. The 3rd Foot could not fire since Williams had moved out of range, but the movement dice allowed them to charge and hit the badly disorganized Marylanders in the rear. Ouch.
On the American right, the 64th Foot charged and caught Lee’s Legion Foot reorganizing, facing the wrong way. As stated earlier, they should have fallen back further to rally. Instead they were routed. In these rules, good units routing cause infectious disorder and desertion among friends within 6”. Almost everyone who wasn’t within 6” of the Maryland rout were within 6” of Lee’s Legion. It was over. The army was a wreck.
It took about 90 minutes to play
5 turns. American losses were extremely high, 21 stands of infantry and 3 of cavalry,
about 414. Many of these were either prisoners or troops who bolted due to
panic. British losses? One stand of infantry in the first fight with Lee’s
legion Foot. Taking into account the 400 British foragers snapped up before the battle, both sides
were even but the repulse was humiliating.
In spite of this I was quite pleased with the way the rules worked. The card system removes any possible problems arising from simultaneous movement. If you’ve played such in the past, you know; “if you do this then I do that”. I recall some dreadful rows about such things. This is way better. Your card comes up, put up or shut up. Having the cavalry move on their own card makes coordination much harder. I might steal one more thing from the Paperboys rules: troops are only affected by the retreat of their own arms. So, infantry think nothing of cavalry clattering past to the rear and vice versa. But when your own sort gives way, look out.
Tuesday, September 8, 2020
Eutaw Springs II via Loose Files AAR
My last solo run of this battle
got the following comment from Jeffers,
“The Firing rules confuse a lot
of people. It is meant to represent long range fire only, basically long-range
pot shots. Close Combat is not melee or hand to hand: it includes close range
firing. It’s better to get stuck in sometimes as good quality troops will
easily shake off this nonsense; close combat has a good chance of causing
damage, even if you lose.”
It being well over a decade since
we last used Loose Files, I decided to try the battle again with this in mind.
I also put Pickens and Marion in as unit leaders (a scenario rule), and based on Novack’s OB gave
the Americans a section of light artillery. A deployment map was discovered
that showed Lee’s Legion foot deployed next to Marion’s militia, so that was
done too. A number of events interfered with the game as will be seen below.
But Jeffers’ comments were worthy of note.
Previously I thought Loose Files needed a few house rules. Now I think it needs clarity. Who is in combat, especially when units are different sizes in a game of linear formations? And when more than one per side is involved, what are the losses? In the case below, Marion and Lee’s Legion Foot attacked the 64th and supporting artillery. Marion’s left was within 4” (combat range) of the Loyalists. So, I included that whole unit, which skewed the odds heavily against Marion and Lee. The result was an easy victory for the Crown, get 1 DP. I gave both infantry units and the artillery section 1 DP each. The defeated loser gets 2 DPs and loses 2 casualties. Applied to both losing units, that was 4 DPs and 4 casualties. I wonder if the winners should get 1 DP only and the losers 2 DPS and casualties only. Hmm.
Pickens was hit but his boys proved that they had what it takes.
Another lesson: don’t let enemy artillery approach to within canister range. The Loyalists are about to get hosed.
I had stopped the game after turn
5 to prepare dinner, a grilled ribeye, roasted veggies, Bordeaux and my wife’s
company. During turn 6, a dear friend called, upset over the state of the nation.
It took a while to calm him. Can’t blame him.
That’s my excuse for making the
combat error. Looking at it today, I didn’t have the will to figure out what to
do about the error to continue and decided to write this up instead. The
British center is like Swiss cheese at this point. If Campbell’s Virginia
Continentals can double-time without getting too disordered, they could smash
the center wide open. Again, if Washington’s Dragoons hadn’t been fiddling
around. Would-a, could-a, should-a…
I played 6 turns in about 90
minutes or so, not counting the breaks for dinner and phone call. Crown losses
so far were 5 stands of regulars, 3 of Loyalists, about 144 troops. Continental
losses were 4 regulars, 8 militia and 2 cavalry, about 240. I really have to
have a game of this whenever we get back to face to face gaming.
Again, I now feel the game needs fewer house rules and more house interpretations of the rules as written. Who is engaged in combat? And how are the penalties shared among multi-unit combats? I’ve already dispensed with orders, since they were mentioned one time and never defined. And threw out the cavalry changing speeds. The infantry doesn’t have to plan a turn in advance to attack, why should the cavalry? As it is, whenever I move cavalry, they roll a 2 and pick up disorder. Nothing in the rules, the dice gods just know.
Sunday, September 6, 2020
USS Cairo, City Class Ironclad
This ship (pronounced Kay-Row) was an early ironclad, one of “Pook’s Turtles”. It saw action at the US capture of Fort Pillow and was later sunk by a mine at the start of the Haines Bluff expedition. At the time of the sinking the water was low. The top of the ship remained above water and none of the crew was seriously hurt. It was discovered in 1956 and over the years salvaged, repaired and opened as a museum at the Vicksburg National Military Park. I visited it in 2016 with my wife and rediscovered the photos recently while transferring data from my old Windows 7 PC to the new Windows 10 (sigh) PC.
These armored boxes on wooden hulls were the terror of the rivers in the heartland. Civil War buffs and fans of steam punk might appreciate a look at the ship. Here is the bow, from starboard and then port.
A Yankee tourist posing by the port guns. I suppose damyankee is one word.
The internal paddle wheels.
And for the die-hard steam-punk fans, the engines.
The starboard armor.
It was quite impressive. One of only 4 surviving Civil War ironclads and as far as I know, the best preserved. I planned to visit the CSS Neuse until discovering that only the keel and ribs remain, no armor, no guns.
Edit: a great video about this gunboat here.
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Eutaw Spings 1781 AAR via Loose Files & American Scramble
Yesterday I tried out my Eutaw Springs scenario. It didn’t go as expected. While editing the photos, I mistakenly labeled the British commander as Rawdon. Oops. It was Stuart. Too late now for the photos. The deployment and opening moves follow.
Continentals losses (from 67
stands), 2 Continental infantry, 6 militia (another 4 ran away) and 1 cavalry
stand (Lee’s Legion). My house rules for officer casualties determined that
Greene was out of action for 6 weeks. British losses were negligible; that is,
none, aside from Stuart’s cocked hat. American losses would be from 380 – 760 depending
on if you count a removed stand as all lost or as half losses, half people
helping wounded friends to the rear.
I agree that the heaviest losses in this (and most) periods occur when troops turn their backs and run while in close proximity to the enemy. But I have noted in the past that musket fire causes none in these rules until the DP level is high. Most of the British DPs were on Marjoribanks’ elite battalion, which was able to rally away 2 every turn as long as they stood still. Elite as they are, they aren’t bullet-proof. I am considering allowing 3 DP hits in a single attack to be converted into one stand lost and a DP. If that were the case Crown forces would have lost at least 3 stands even though they never got close to a dangerous DP level on any one unit.
Units are only forced
to retreat or rout by close combat, not by fire alone. Perhaps a unit that has
more DPs than surviving stands should retreat in the same phase as units losing
close combats. A unit with twice as many DPs routs. Last, the rules about
cavalry changing speed is interesting to read but an extra thing in practice. I
intend to junk it and allow cavalry to gallop from a standing start. It is
simpler.
I really like the Loose Files
rules and merely seek to make them clearer without making them more complex –
easier to say than to do. I know the British Grenadier rules are based on Loose
Files but I suspect they added a layer of complexity. I need to redo my QRS and
put it in turn sequence order.
Now, on to correcting my scenario. Perhaps exceptional
unit leaders should be represented. Pickens and Marion are two that come to
mind. They stay with their units but can rally off a DP each turn. They are
also liable to being hit like normal leaders. Nothing can be done about the
British dice, which weren’t hot so much as the Continental dice were cold as
ice unless shooting at the bullet-proof elites.
Further cogitation is required…
PS the new release of Blogger has some good things and some bad. If you load a group of photos the order is reversed, meaning you have to do one at a time. Previously thumbnails didn't impinge on the stuff on the right hand side of the screen. Now it does. If anyone knows how to gripe to the designers, please let me know.