1848 - A Rebels & Patriots Trial Game

After given 'TMWWBK' a run out recently, I left the terrain set up to do a 'compare and contrast' game using the 'Rebels & Patriots' rules, again from Dan Mersey's stable. Having been heavily involved in the playtesting for these, I was hoping they would come back to me pretty quickly. 

Background Fluff

The scenario is nominally set during the 1848 Hungarian Revolution, where forces from far and wide across Europe came to fight. Here we have a small Company allied to the Austrian cause coming to blows with an Italian Volunteer Force, fighting on behalf of the Hungarians. The Italians are after a small supply train that is having a rest in and around a ruined Roman temple, with the Austrians moving up to try and rescue said train.

Forces

I tried to keep the forces as close as possible to the previous games, but due to slight points differences, the Austrians gained a unit of Light Cavalry, the Italians a Light Artillery piece plus limber.

Austrians

3 x Light Infantry

1 x Jaegers

1 x Light Cavalry

Italians

2 x Line Infantry

1 x Light Infantry

1 x Light Cavalry

1 x Dragoons

1 x Light Artillery plus Limber

The Action

So with the forces deployed, it was time to kick off the action. The Austrians won the random dice roll to see who would move first. Annotated photos will hopefully give you a feel for the action.

An overview of the table, with the Austrians on the left, the Italians the right.

The cows being moved to a milking shed.

Goose stepping forward, they approach the temple where the baggage train is resting.

The Austrian line, with the Jaegers on the left flank.

The Italian line.

The Light Artillery piece.

Light Cavalry to the left, flanked by Dragoons on their right.

The end of Turn 1. The Austrians moved forward in line (note I forgot to deploy the Light Cavalry!), whilst the Italians response was hampered by their Dragoons and Light Cavalry refusing to move.

The cowherd happy to see troops moving forward to protect him.

Jaegers advance.

Italian Light Infantry occupy the wood.

The Light Artillery yet to deploy as their line advances.

The end of Turn 2. The Austrians advance and begin to open fire on the Italians, but to little effect. The Italians respond, but again their Light Cavalry fail to move.

Austrian Light Cavalry move up as Light Infantry line a hedgerow.

Jaegers occupy the orchard.

The Italian Light cavalry still having a siesta?

As the Light Artillery deploys, the Line Infantry form Line to their right.

Turn 3. The Italian and Austrian Light Cavalry clash...

...with the Austrians coming out on top, leading to the Italians routing off the table.

The end of Turn 3. The Austrians get a slight advantage in shooting, inflicting some Disorder on the Italians, who do the same to the Austrians in the temple.

The Austrians concentrate their fire towards the Italian centre, although the troops by the hedge fail to fire.

The Italian Dragoons fail to respond to the threat to their flank from the Austrian Light Cavalry, which could cause some problems...

The Light Artillery joins the fray, but to limited effect.

Turn 4. The Austrian Light Cavalry charge the Dragoons, who try to evade, but are caught and destroyed...

... leaving the Austrians to follow up into the Italian Line Infantry...

... causing damage and Disorder, but leading to them being forced to retreat. 

The end of Turn 4. After the devastating charges by the Austrian Light Cavalry, the Austrian Light Infantry firing leads to the Italian Company commander and his unit routing off the table.

The Austrians sense a chance of victory.

The Italain commander and his unit break and rout.

All that is left of the Italian force, who wisely quit the field of battle.

The Austrians lead off the 'spoils of war'.

End of the Battle

So after mid-way through Turn 4, the Italians had ceased to be an effective fighting force, with the sudden loss of so many units in quick succession, with the only viable option of them retreating to try and fight another day.

Post Game Thoughts

Well that was fast and furious and certainly lots of fun! Certainly being more au fait with the rules helped, but even so, I still made a few errors, but nothing major that affected the outcome of the game. The action was longer than before, lasting about an hour all told. As always a few musings:

• It may seem a minor thing, but the QRS I was using, had the page numbers for each section highlighted, so it was VERY easy to find the relevant section quickly to check on any queries I had, which certainly speeded up the game. I wish all rules and their QRS's did this!
• The ranges of the weapons and the less deadly nature of them (or so it felt), made for a much better game and felt more right for the period being gamed. I'm sure using some of the weapons options in TMWWBK would provide a similar game, but I will be sticking with R&P for this period.
• Having not been sure how useful Cavalry might be in these games, for this one they certainly turned the tide for the Austrians in the bat of an eyelid!
• Whilst the 3' x 3' table size worked well, I certainly will be moving up to a 4' x 4' from now on, as it just gives a bit more room for manouevre, as well as for space for units to retreat and reform.
• Reading the rules post-game, I noticed I had made a mistake on the attack movement distances, assuming that the normal move rates would apply, whereas in fact if is the 2D6 roll that dictates the distance. Upon reflection, I like the normal moves for Charges, as the Cavalry in Europe was used much more differently than in America. Ditto the Infantry often charged in until improved weapons meant this was not the best option by the 1860's
• In the rules the Commander is part and parcel of his unit, but I like the idea of him actually being able to rove around, to move to where he is most needed, being completely independent until he joins a unit if required. I need to think on this more but the idea appeals to be for sure.

What Next?

Firstly I want to sort out the background fluff for both forces and the setting in general, to help drive the narrative campaign I have in my mind. Once that is done, then I want to look at some linked scenarios from the book and maybe the OHW one, to give me a framework upon which to hand the campaign. Plenty to keep the old grey cells going for sure.

Alongside this some painting and terrain making is planned. I would like to play the next game in my BKCII mini-campaign, but need to paint up some more units first, but the desire to paint WWII stuff is not with me at present, but you never know...

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the AAR. As always any comments greatly appreciated!

TTFN.

TMWWBK - Some Trial Games

I've had 'The Men Who Would Be Kings' rules for many a year, but have never actually played a game with them. To be honest I can't remember why I bought them, but most likely it was just to have them in the 'Rampant' stable, for possible use in the future. Colonial games have never really piqued my interest, so they have sat on the bookshelf more or less neglected since purchase.

But with the aim to get more games in this year, now that I have the dedicated games room, I dug them out along with 'Xenos Rampant' and 'Rebels & Patriots' to see which one I wanted to use for some quick games to get back into the swing of things. R&P I was heavily involved in the playtesting of and XP could wait until my 'Aliens' were ready, so TMWWBK it was.

After a few quick read throughs and some rough forces knocked up, I set up a really simple table for a vanilla 'Encounter' type scenario, just to really get a handle on the mechanics, troops types etc. I wanted to use my mid-19thC ImagiNations forces, so all of the aforementioned was largely governed by this.

I didn't take any notes of the action and only a few photos, with my thoughts on the game etc to follow: 

The table with a nominal objective in the centre. The 'Germans' are on the left, the 'Italians' on the right.

Standard Line Infantry on the 'German' side.

Old ruins and a supply train make up the nominal objective.

Irregular Cavalry and Mounted Infantry (Dragoons) on the Italian left.

Irregular Infantry on the 'Italian' right.

Boths sides advance in skirmish order.

The 'Germans' close in on the ruins.

"We're not retreating, we're advancing in another direction". The 'Italian' Line Infantry take devastating fire and break having suffered massive losses.

The 'Germans' whose volleys saw the demise of the 'Italian' Line Infantry.

Depleted Irregular Cavalry charge the 'German' Line Infantry and are repulsed with losses, leaving them hors de combat.

A poor Rallying roll of a double 1 leads to the loss of another 'Italian' Line Infantry unit.

The rules used and considered.

Post Game Thoughts

Even though I had never played TMWWBK before, I'd say 90% of the mechanics seemed very intuitive as they share a lot with R&P and others from the 'Rampant' table, which made the game pretty easy to play. This certainly makes chopping and changing between the periods covered by Dan Mersey's rules very easy to do, which is a big bonus for sure. Anyway, some more detailed observations as follows:

• Previously I've played these sort of games on a 2' x 2' table and with half measurements but, having read the rules, Dan mentions that 15mm looks good on the standard sized table. So I thought I'd try a 3' x 3' one and it worked a treat. Moving forward I'm sure I will try this with the other rules too and possible on a 4' x 4' one as well.
• Both games were very quick and brutal, due to some excellent dice rolling to hit, some rubbish Rallying rolls and the odd minor mistake with the rules. I found that once a side had got fire ascendency and had opponents units pinned, then it was very hard for them to recover from that, which made it a bit one sided.
• Each game lasted about 30 minutes as it was all about the mechanics, but normally I'd reckon an hours play would see any scenario being played wrapped up, certianly when playing solo.
• Whilst the rules are OK for a simple battle like this, they really need a good scenario to make them work as, as can be seen from the above. So for my next games I will look for a scenario that I fancy playing to see how things go.
• For this game I kept the Leadership values at 6+ ( agood commander), but even then in the first game the 'Germans' just didn't get moving and got shot to bits as a result! Neither did I really explore the options for weapons and skills, but did note that the modern rifles as the default ones for Infantry were rather devastating due to their range. Obselete rifles might have been more in keeping with the period feel I'm after.
• Cavalry doesn't have much use it would seem, certainly when facing good Line Infantry, but against hordes of Tribal troops, they could be useful I'm sure.
• I think for Colonial games TMWWBK certainly fits the bill as one would expect, but I'm not sure they are giving me the feel I'm after. So next up I'm going to run some games on the same table with R&P that I'm much more at home with and spend some time of on force selection and scenario choice.

Thanks for reading and commenting too, as it's always greatly appreciated!

TTFN.

It's A Bug's Life!

Or as Monty Python would say: " And now for something completely different." This time last year I bought some packs of Pendraken Aliens, I think to be used in some Dragon Rampant games, but to be honest I can't remember! I know I did intend to finish painting them by the end of February for Pendraken's annual painting contest but, well, that never happened, as like so many projects, I moved onto other things.

But having sat there being moved each time I needed to access my paints, I thought why not just get on with it and finish them? And so I did. I had intended on some very fancy painting of markings on the heads, some subtle highlights etc, but these went by the wayside as I realised that my shaky hand was not up to the task, plus frankly I would notice said higlights when on the table top. A shame really as they are very nice sculpts!

So with my practical head firmly in place and with a desire to finish off more projects this year, I went with a very simple colours scheme of black bodies, with some colourful marking on the heads that I could just about manage, finished off with some gloss lacquer to give that shiny carapace look. This meant that whilst they look fine for a game, they do not photo well, but hopefully you can get an idea from the following:

'Alice the Alien'. The mother of the brood depending upon the rules used, with the Hive Mind approach as it were. I couldn't decide upon which colour to use and where for the markings, so just left her overall black instead.

Some mid-level Aliens, the red denoting close combat chaps.

More mid-level, but the green meaning some ranged gas attacks.

The Critters, in this scheme...

... and this one.

Some Scorpions (there are three) for a larger close combat bug.

Alice and family off for a picnic. I had no idea how big the sculpts were until they arrived and, whilst larger than I thought, they actually work really well. A standard 10mm figure and pack horse to give an idea of size.

Every Alien needs an egg or something similar, so at Xmas whilst SWMBO was shelling walnuts, I thought these would make a good bit of terrain for an Easter egg hunt! The texture is just great and I pondered over what colour to paint them, tempted as I was to try and make them blend in. In the end gloss black won out as I really wanted them to stand out when on the table. 

The finished product.

Given how often they are going to get played with, I'm happy with my simple and quick paint job. It would have been nice to spend more time on them, but many other projects deserve more time and attention! Still it's nice to see them finished. I do have some other 'bugs' to be assembled, but I'm in no hurry to do this.

Rules wise they will be used with 'Dragon Rampant' as originally planned and now I have 'Xenos Rampant' too, I'm sure they will get a look in with these too. I have some more odd figures to paint as I'm really enjoying this process, so hopefully I might even get in a game soon.

As always thanks for reading and commenting too:)!

TTFN.